wilting, flourish, (repeat)
by meltedwords
Summary: "You don't have me. She repeated the phrase as much as she could in her head, trying to get Anna's being out of her head, but so far, it wasn't working." Modern-day university AU, Elsanna.
1. sequence one

_Author's note: _Huh. So I haven't posted on this website since I was in high school as far as I remember. It was before they cracked down on the ratings and all that. I'm labeling this as M-rated for now, though as a precaution I will be creating a LJ account for this fic as well, starting with the next chapter. If I feel it's heading towards MA-rating, though, I'll move the entire thing to LJ. :-) Anyway, first Frozen fic, thus first Elsanna fic as well. I've only seen the movie once (my second time may be tomorrow afternoon!), so I'm just going off my memory of how I saw the characters and twisting them some for this modern-day AU. I hope they still feel like them, though. In some essence. Thanks for reading!

* * *

_You don't have me. _Elsa stared at the computer screen in the university's library and read her sister's email again, not even noticing the blinking IM screen (also from her sister) on the bottom leftmost corner of the monitor.

She had nearly _begged _her sister to go to Yulson, because, _hell, _she'd gotten not one but two scholarships for her musical talents. But no, no, she wanted to come here to Kiernan, nestled between the Wulsenng and Euringst mountain ranges, roughly six hours north of Arendelle. Elsa felt disgusted with herself, and unjustifiably angry at Anna. She had come here to get as far away from Arendelle as she could, but still within the country that her father had been a bureaucrat for.

Her phone rang and plucked her from the email she had zoned out over. Kristoff, a friend she had met in her first drawing class a year ago, was asking her if she'd like to grab some lunch in the cafeteria.

"You, I – I'm busy now, Kris," she muttered, "And I'm in the _library_. Switch to text?"

He chuckled and agreed, cutting the connection.

_So? _came the text.

**Elsa (13:45)  
**_Why in the world am I friends with you._

**Kristoff (13:47)  
**_Ouch, Els. I knew Anna before you. What would she say to your harsh words?_

**Elsa (13:50)  
**_She would just say that cemented her decision to come here, so we could "stay together" and all that sentimental bullshit._

**Kristoff (13:51)  
**_How are you two related again?_

–Elsa cringed. She hadn't – fuck. Why was she so horrible at this friendship crap? Even now, she could hear it, "Why in the world can't she be more _polite_, like Anna? Our first-born, yet such _crassness._" Oh, _god. _She'd tried, she had. Put on a show for mother and father, curtsy at social functions, try to be their _perfect_ daughter. And Anna got away with near murder; she wasn't _that _polite.

Why was she even thinking about this? She read the rest of Kristoff's text, agreeing to meet for lunch where they could discuss Anna's not-so-tentative decision.

_You don't have me_. She repeated the phrase as much as she could in her head, trying to get Anna's _being _out of her mind, but so far, it wasn't working. Maybe she was trying too hard to forget. That was probably it.

When she sat down at a two-seater with Kristoff, he had already eaten his entire bread roll. _Do you not even chew properly? _She shook her head imperceptibly and sat across from him as he took off his beanie cap and set it on the windowsill beside their table. His blond mess of a haircut fell nearly into his eyes now but it just made the girls, as he _said, "_notice the hell out of these gorg'brown eyes!' Golden-brown, how precisely _gorg_eous. She grabbed his beanie from the window and threw it at his face. He stared dumbly at her as it fell to his lap.

"What was that for?"

"I'm mad and you're there."

"Illuminating, Els."

"Shut the fuck up. I don't _want _my sister here."

"Why don't you tell her that?" he stuck his fork into a slice of meat and barely chewed it before swallowing. Elsa blanched.

"Why don't _you_ chew like a proper gentleman?"

Kristoff grinned, "'Cause I'm_ not_ one. Just ask Anna."

Elsa looked at him dully, "She's my _sister. _I'm not – god, just fuck off."

"You're evading." Kristoff waved his fork (full with string beans) at her face, and she hid behind her glass of hot tea. With that _lovely _spearmint flavoring that reminded her of… goddamn that shampoo.

"Would _you _want your little siblings following _you_ wherever you went?"

Kristoff turned a corner of his lips down in thought, and then he shrugged and stuck his fork in his mouth, barely chewing his food again before swallowing. Elsa knew she didn't want to be around him for much longer, lest she be in absolute _need _of his belching prowess. Which was never.

"Don't have any. Can't fathom."

"You're a huge help, Kris."

"Glad to be of service, Els. Suppose you'd rather me not tell—"

"Do I need to answer that? No, please. I'll… I'll do it myself."

* * *

She really didn't know _what _to say to Anna. Of course she _loved _her little sister, but this wasn't the place for her. She _belonged _at Yulson, where her talents could flourish and she…

But she wanted to come here, to be with her again.

_I miss you so much, Elsa. And it's not as if… well, you know. I don't need those scholarships as much as some others. Don't you understand? I can still pursue my dreams at Kiernan, _and _I can be with you, too! _

Why did she have to get stuck with sister who _loved _her? She'd be better off with a sister who hated her, didn't want to even _speak _with her. That sounded much more normal, much easier. It wasn't as if she deserved Anna's love, anyway. What had she ever done for her sister besides lock her out? Figuratively _and _literally. And yet, still. Still…

Life fucking _sucked_. And she had a design project she needed to finish. Or, well, _start_ and finish within the time span of… a week. Fuck. _Fuck. _

Why did Anna have to come in and ruin every semblance of sanity she had?

At least she had the rest of this year left, and then she'd only have one more to go. Would a year of university with Anna there be too much? Elsa remembered the last time she'd let Anna in her bedroom at home, the way her sister had lunged at her, hugging her lungs nearly out her _throat_, and the way her heart had stopped, only to begin pitter-pattering again once she'd smelled spearmint hanging around Anna's neckline.

Her voice still lingered, "Thanks for opening up the door, Elsa."

Elsa shivered and got back to her staring contest with the computer screen in front of her, the apartment quiet until she shuffled some soft instrumentals with iTunes. Concentration music. Nearly distraction-free.

Not enough, though.

Metal it was, then.


	2. sequence two

_Author's note: _Sorry to say that this quick of an upload between chapters will most likely never happen again! Just needed to get this baby out before sleeping.

The LJ link for this story is "wf (dash) repeat dot livejournal dot com"

* * *

_It's as if she's some flower I fear I'll break again._ Elsa knew she never wanted to see her sister's face, her entire _self_, just literally wilt right before her, like she had shortly after their parents had passed. And all because Elsa had shut her out _again_, telling her to fuck the hell off, adding insult to injury with, "What are you anyway, some _baby_?"

God, she hated herself sometimes. Nah, cross that out. Not sometimes. All the time. A bottle of self-loathing all just bundled up into a neat little perfect… bottle. Every bit of it to try and please her parents, but then they had gone and _died _and she had ended up not knowing who the hell she really even _was _anymore at the age of eighteen.

So she'd thrown herself into art - a pastime she'd had as a child, as well - because she'd needed _something _to do with her jittery fingers, her shaky hands, anything to quell the white noise between her ears. She needed _distractions_, and, in the process, had forgotten she'd had Anna who would have gladly filled up her time. Maybe that was for the best, though. Or maybe it wasn't, because the alternative had happened instead and she'd thought for weeks that she was never going to see the redhead again, let alone _speak _to her again.

But then, as Anna was apt to do, she started trying to mend the relationship first. God, she was so fucking _selfless_. Elsa loved her. And hated her.

It was complicated.

Anyway, she knew today was going to suck when she managed _somehow _to snag some of her hair in the topmost button of her azure blue cardigan. Her favorite cardigan had gone and betrayed her. The stinging pain dulled in a few tattered moments, but then Anna was at her doorway, calling her name.

Annnnd it was back again.

She'd made her sister _cry_. Granted, it had been years ago now, but she still remembered. And internally winced.

"_Today's the day, isn't it, Elsa?"_ Anna's voice lilted over to her ears.

Elsa laughed deprecatingly and gestured to the couple of suitcases on her bed, "What does this tell you?" _God, why are you such an asshole?_ _She's done nothing to… deserve this. You're misplacing, misdirecting. Stop it. _But how?

"That's all you're taking?" Just like Anna to skip right past the indirect jab. Elsa honestly did not know what made Anna tick as she did. She brushed everything off – well, most everything. She let things go easily. Elsa wished she had some of… whatever made Anna so persistent, so resilient. She was envious, but she also admired Anna.

Again, it was complicated.

Elsa grabbed the handles of both suitcases, placing their wheels on the ground and rolling them over towards Anna. She met her younger sister's eyes, "Most everything is at my apartment already. Are you ready?"

Anna flashed her a wide smile, "Yep!" And then she hugged Elsa. It was… warm. Duh. Fucking _obvious. _Elsa couldn't form the rest of her reaction into intelligible, acceptable words, though. It was more like _blugmnuuhfuhy_. She returned the embrace, albeit slowly and awkwardly, and it was over far too soon. The scent of faint spearmint lingered again, though. Elsa consoled herself with that.

She wasn't sure how to handle Kristoff driving them, however. He was much more adept at riding horses or commandeering reindeer-driven sleds. Cars weren't his forte, and Elsa _wanted _to drive, but the man was way too protective over Sven _Model 2_. The SUV-version of his pet reindeer, Sven, was much louder but thankfully less smelly. To a small degree.

_Why does Anna want me to sit in the back with her? _She wasn't sure when that decision had been made, she'd been too busy still trying to come up with excuses to keep Anna away and out of her own apartment. Why had this happened again? After all her valid, well-thought out attempts at persuading Anna to go to Yulson instead of her own university, none had worked. None.

How the hell was she supposed to make it in the graphic design advertising world if she couldn't even persuade her own _sister _to do something? She'd probably wind up persuading consumers to purchase the exact _opposite _of whatever her future bossman wanted. If she ever _got _a future bossman. Or bosswoman. Boss, gender-neutral. Or better, executive-in-charge. Head executive.

She felt Anna place a hand on her jean-clad thigh.

"Huh?"

"You were zoned out, Elsa. I just wanted to know if you want a drink. Kris is going in for some snacks and drinks. Or do you want a snack? Or both?"

Elsa blinked, "I'll just take whatever he brings back. You know I'm not that picky."

Her sister bit her lip, as if wanting to deny that very notion, but she just licked her lips and went back to reading from one of her textbooks for a class that had yet to even start. Always the studious one, Anna. And the social butterfly. Elsa was surprised too that Anna hadn't followed a few of her best friends to Yulson. It only made Elsa's heart swell with that… odd feeling again.

It was stupid. She was stupid. Anna was… beautiful.

_Where the fuck did that come from? _

She didn't have the time to answer herself; Kristoff was back with a bag of snacks and drinks for them all.

"Still got a ways to go, ladies! About four more hours."

_Four more. _Elsa was glad she'd packed her iPod. She put the earbuds in and started up _Pelagial_, surrendering to the music and to a nap. Well-deserved, she thought. It wasn't as if she cared about the scenery outside the vehicle, anyway.

* * *

"…_What about us? Do you feel anything?"*_

Elsa sat up, rubbing her eyes, the glaring sun causing her to squint the sleep away as best as possible. She yawned and stretched out her arms, forgetting that Anna was there for a moment.

But this wasn't Kristoff's truck. This…

"Anna!"

_It's just a dream. It's just… _And she woke up, her earbuds long fallen out.

But she couldn't forget the look of terror on Anna's bloody face, and she… she had been terrified of _her. _What had she done? What had she… Elsa caught herself before she let out a sob. She had _caused _that. She'd had some sort of… break. She was terrified of herself.

She _had_ done that, more or less. Without the blood, but with the terror, the betrayal, the hurt that she had yet to fix. What she didn't know _how _to fix. She had no right to sit here beside Anna, no right to Anna's love… no right at all.

Why did Anna love her?

"_You my big sissy, Elswah, and I love you! Make me go higher!"_

_She remembered before. Anna, only a couple of years old, lifting her up in the air. They had been laughing, so happy, before Father had been promoted into higher and higher ranks, and their world had turned into a circus show and a carefully choreographed ballet that Anna excelled at better than Elsa. Elsa tried, she did, but she had to _work _at it. Anna was naturally gifted, personable, charming. Elsa could feign elegance and good posture, but natural charm, personability? She couldn't._

"So you're going to be in Raals?" Kristoff was asking Anna from the front seat. They were much closer to the university now, apparently. "That's where I was my first year, too. Decent place."

Anna nodded, "Yes, I've heard good things about it. A few bad, but it's a dormitory. I'm not expecting an extravagant castle!" Her little sister laughed, holding the palm of her hand over her mouth. _Why is she so cute when she does that? _Elsa couldn't help but smile faintly. And Anna noticed. Why did she have to glance over at her just then?

"Elsa! You're awake!" She took Elsa's hands in her own, rubbing the sleep out of her muscles, working her way up her arms. "I know how you are after naps," she laughed a little. Elsa felt her face warm, and she turned away to look at the woods passing by the moving truck they were in. Anna's touch was comforting, selfless again, only thinking of her sister. Who was very much undeserving.

_Say something._

"Er, uh, thanks?" She didn't mean for it to come out like a question. She really didn't. God, she was so stupid. Anna really should have been the elder one, she was already so much better at everything. Elsa didn't, couldn't ever stack up to her.

"_Why can't she be more like our Anna, and less… less…"_

Elsa visibly cringed at that overheard memory; why was she doing all these things she didn't mean to today? Thankfully, though, Anna didn't notice her involuntary action this time around. Or else she would have asked what happened, _what's wrong_, and Elsa didn't know how much more control she had anymore. This car ride had gone on for _far _too long in too cramped of a space, even though it was a SUV, not a tiny car. She would have never lasted even an _hour_ cramped inside a small car with Anna.

How was she going to handle this semester, let alone this entire _year_ with Anna there? Oh god, she needed to get her spare apartment key back from Kristoff somehow, soon. _Fuck._

She should have just dropped out.

And then Anna decided to rest her head on Elsa's shoulder, _snuggling _up to her. Mumbled something about there being a little over half an hour left in their ride, and how "a little nap sounds really good right about now," and, "Love you, Elsa."

Elsa shut her eyes and steeled her resolve, helping Anna get more comfortable in her positioning. She heard her younger sister's last three words in her head again, and felt herself saying two of the same in return.

Not as if Anna could hear her now anyway.

Goddamnit.

_*Lyrics by The Ocean, album titled Pelagial, song titled "Abyssopelagic I: Boundless Vasts"_


	3. sequence three

**A/N:** Just a disclaimer that I am in no way Norwegian nor do I have any Nordic/Scandinavian in me. I just googled a couple little things, so basically this is _much_ more based on American university than Nordic. I'm going by a three-year term to a bachelor's degree, and that's about it.

* * *

"I had no idea this shit would be so goddamn _heavy_." Elsa felt herself puffing in and out small amounts of air as she and Kristoff helped Anna move into her dormitory room. "What the hell did she even _put _in this container?"

Kris grinned, "Betcha I could lift it all by myself, Els." _Great. Macho-man to the rescue! _Elsa scoffed and nearly thought to drop her end of the container, but then remembered: _Anna's. _Some part of her overwhelmed the irrational end of her mind and said _No. You aren't. You care at least _that _much. _

"If not more…" she murmured as she thought back to the way she had held Anna's hand during the last half hour of the trip while her younger sister napped, unaware of the soft stroking motions Elsa's fingers had lost themselves in, and even more unaware of the thoughts that had ran wild in her older sister's mind.

"What?" Kristoff asked. "Sorry, didn't catch you."

Elsa blew several stray strands of hair out of her face and shook her head of the memory, chastising herself, "Nothing important. Where's Anna?"

Her little sister's pattering footsteps bounding up the staircase answered her, followed by her voice, "Sorry, you two! I'm coming – I just met Rapunzel, though." Her voice was the embodiment of excitement personified. It sickened Elsa. It made her heartbeat rush. She shut it off.

"Who?" Kristoff said, motioning at the same time to Elsa to set the container down by room three-sixteen, Anna's new bedroom plus living room plus… wait, no. This was a community-styled dorm. Community bathrooms. Elsa had _hated _those. She still remembered the time a girl had been hungover and mistaken her taken shower stall as a toilet to vomit in. It had been completely disgusting.

She'd also "conveniently" hated the time another girl on her hall had walked in on her showering "by mistake," and then complimented her. Naked. What in the. The girl had been much better-looking than herself, but why was she even thinking about this again?

Oh, yeah. Her sister was trying to introduce her new roommate to her and Kristoff. The girl had a pixie-cut, auburn bangs falling just around her immaculately shaped eyebrows. She also had a small nose ring and a boy with too many layers on hooked around her right hand. He said his name was Flynn, and the cap sitting on his head was about to fall off. When it inevitably did, he just put on Rapunzel's head instead. She giggled, and in some flash of time that Elsa couldn't quite remember passing, they'd moved all of Anna's stuff into her room.

Elsa sat on her sister's twin-extra long sized bed, watching as Kristoff hung up a map of the world in front of Anna's desk. She was mentally trying to calculate the distance from Norway to the western coast of the United States – that faraway place that Anna had been wanting to visit since they were _children_, but then someone sat down next to her. No, not someone. Anna. And she was touching Elsa's shoulder softly. She wanted to die right there.

"Are you still cold, Elsa? I can give you one of my pea coats I brought for the winter if you want." She glanced down at herself, at the still zipped up hoodie she was wearing, and shrugged nonchalantly.

"I'm… I'm fine."

_No you aren't. You've been sitting in sweat for the past, like, seven minutes, you idiot. _She felt _safe _within the hoodie, though. She shivered, just for a moment, and wondered if she was getting ill. But it was just Anna being here, again. She'd been doing so _well, _too. Hardly ever speaking to her, it had been so fucking _easy_ with six hours between them for nearly two years.

But now she was here again, not even half a foot from her.

_I wish I could do right by you. _But even though she was, really, good at her work – she had gone back to her apartment laughing at the high marks she'd received on her second-year graphic design final. That thing she swore she'd _rushed _on. Even though she'd done well by her work in university, without too much planned studying to look back on, she felt light-years from doing right by Anna. And wasn't Anna more important? She was the only family she had left now – she was... she…

Elsa gulped down a large lump in her throat and stood up in another instant, looking at everyone but Anna, quickly rushing out with a, "I've… I gotta go. My apartment, the uh, the spare keys were left out. In the open. I forgot."

She didn't stop walking until she got down to the lobby of the dormitory.

_You callous dumbfuck. Didn't even say goodbye to your own sister._

She told herself to keep walking. And she did, right until she found the bus and was sufficiently cold as fuck again even though it was only late August. _Way to go, making yourself ill before the year even starts!_ The driver took her student ID and scanned it, verifying before she got her free ride back to… however close this thing would take her to the apartment.

Her phone buzzed not even five minutes into the drive. Anna's name flashed in white text, followed by a text.

**Anna (21:23)  
**_Please call me when you get back to your apt!_

Elsa began to type a few letters into a response, but thought better of it and slid the thing back into a pocket. A few minutes later the phone buzzed again.

**Anna (21:30)  
**_Everyone just left. Thank you for helping me move in, Elsa. I really appreciate it. We don't see each other enough anymore! It was nice._

**Anna (21:31)  
**_I love you. Please call soon. _

"Please stop," Elsa whispered more to herself than to Anna. She grabbed a fistful of her hair in her hands and pulled until the pain made her eyes water. Thankfully no one else here gave a flying shit what anyone else was doing. Thank god for living in a Nordic country. Or at least on a bus without an extrovert like her sister.

Another couple of stops, and she was less than a block from her apartment complex. Off the bus, she pulled her hood over her head and stuffed her hands into the hoodie's pockets. The wind was up, but it still wasn't cold enough for her to need this. But need it she did.

Or maybe she hadn't at all, based on the sweat drenching her body as she entered her apartment and stripped off until she got down to her bra and jeans. Elsa fanned herself with a set of stapled papers – syllabi? She couldn't remember anymore, though she believed that she _did _remember not signing up for a guy being in her apartment when she turned around to go to her bedroom.

Staring at her as if shocked that _she _was here.

No, wait. Maybe it was the whole nearly half-naked get-up she had going on presently. _Fuck. What the fuck. _Elsa backed up, reaching for her hoodie at the very least, and the man nodded shortly.

"I, uh," he started as she put on her hoodie, "Shit. My regular, 'I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs!' routine isn't going to cut it here, is it?" He rubbed a hand through his hair and grinned, "I'm sorry."

Elsa sighed and shook her head, "It's all right. Did you just sign a lease today?"

"Nah, nah… did it a few days ago. Did they not notify you or anything?"

"I… I haven't checked my email recently. Maybe that's what… what happened. Yeah."

He smiled, "Probably. Anyway, I'm Olaf! And, well, you heard the rest already." Without warning, he came over and gave her a tight hug. _Much _too forward for her liking, but what was she to do? She suffered through it and patted his back awkwardly.

"Not much of a hugger, are ya?" he chuckled. "We're gonna have to change that! … That is, if you want to." He put one of his thumbs to the corner of his mouth and tilted his head, then made a little noise, "Ah! I forgot, you're… Elsa, aren't you? That's what they told me, at least."

She nodded, making up some excuse to get into her room and lock the door. _Talk to my sister, Anna. That's not an excuse, I'm actually supposed to. _She turned her phone off and made it one, though. She just wanted to sleep, hoping that when she woke up it would have all been a dream. This entire _fucking _day.

No more Anna here in the same city, no more Olaf with his near-constant grin plastered on his face.

She wanted to call Anna so badly.

But what would she even say? She was better off trying to forget she had a beautiful younger sister that was far too kind to her for her own good.

Everyone would be much better off that way. At least then she wouldn't feel like kissing her sister just for being so damned kind.

And cute.

_What the hell. _Elsa buried her head into her pillow and wanted to scream.


	4. sequence four

"_Elsa! This… doesn't taste so good. I don't _feel_ very good, Elsa…"_

_She didn't know what to do. She didn't know… oh god. Oh god, oh god. Oh –_

"_Anna!" she rushed to her little sister, Anna's mouth dripping blue and green paints. She had left the room for maybe, oh god, maybe five minutes? To walk to the bathroom and use it and wash her hands? Oh god, she'd told Anna to just sit still. Don't touch the paints at all, Anna, all right?_

_Oh god. She should have taken Anna with her. She should have… she… no, no, no. This was all wrong and where were their parents?_

"_Mama! Papa! Mama! Papa!" she had called until she was hoarse, and by some sort of strike of good fortune, after two minutes (she hoped it had only been that short of a time), they were there, and her father's eyes were wide._

"_What in the hell happened here?" he demanded, and told their mother to call an ambulance. He already knew what had happened. Elsa could see that lining his face as her mother called the ambulance. She was scared, and she was holding Anna tightly to her, but then she was gone, taken from her and in their father's arms instead. He cursed the ambulance for taking six minutes to get to their house, and cursed at nothing in particular while Anna was taken inside._

"_I'm sorry, Papa, I'm so sorry," Elsa said, over and over, until her mother shushed her while they sat in the waiting room. She wasn't even thanked for remembering to bring the paints that Anna had ingested so the doctors could see what exactly they were dealing with. She was left in silence instead, with only the muted TV screen to distract her thoughts from what she'd done._

_It wasn't until the next morning that Anna was released, and by that evening Elsa noticed that all of her painting materials were gone._

"_We can't trust you with them anymore, Elsa," her father told her, holding his hands around her shoulders as he bent down to her level._

"_But I…"_

"_No. No, Elsa."_

* * *

She woke with a start and covered her sweating face with both of her hands. _What the fuck. Why remember that now? _Elsa turned on her side and saw her phone, deciding to turn it on, wanting something to take her away from remembering.

"_No more paints. And we've got to always tell Anna that she accidentally swallowed detergent instead."_

"_Why, Papa?"_

"_She'll notice you don't have any paints now if we tell her the truth, and she'll start asking questions."_

"_But won't she remember anyway?"_

_Her father shook his head. The anesthetic had left her with amnesia, likely permanent but not damaging, of the past several days. She would still remember that Elsa had once loved to paint, and let her watch, but now… "You'll just have to say you grew out of it." And that was the end of it._

_She hated herself, and she hated that she couldn't paint anymore, just because she was too dumb to put away her paints before going to the bathroom. One simple mistake. And Anna had nearly been poisoned to death because of it._

Anna had left her three voicemails, each about forty-five minutes apart. It was nearly half past three in the fucking morning now, and the last one had been left ten minutes ago. What in the _hell _was Anna doing up at that time? She had enjoyed going to some parties in high school, but not too many, mostly because she was stuck at home studying a lot of the time to maintain her grades. Shit like academia didn't come as naturally to her like it did Elsa, but fuck if she didn't work hard to do her best to keep up and sometimes go _further. _Christ, the woman was amazing.

How _were _they both related?

The first voicemail, left at 01:39: "Hey Els, it's Anna – did you get back to your apartment all right? Call me back soon! Love you." Elsa replayed it twice before moving onto the next one, unsure whether she was disgusted with herself for her reasons for doing it, or too enamored with her sister's lilting, pleasing voice to give a damn.

The second voicemail, left at 02:23: "Elsa? Are you all right? You left in such a hurry, and said something about leaving keys out in the open. I'm worried. Please give me a call back!" A lingering pause, and, "I love you."

And the last, left at 03:09: "Hey…" Anna's voice was growing tired, Elsa could hear it her sister's half-yawn, "Don't tell me you fell asleep before two in the morning. I know you, Elsie – " Elsa's breath caught at the old pet name, "—and you're such a night owl." Anna laughed, but there wasn't much heart in it.

"Please call me, Els, _please_… I wish you'd given me a key, but… well. I love you, all right? You're my big sister and I've never forgotten that." The message ended.

She wished she was sitting on the edge of Anna's bed now, her fingers wrapped up in her sister's thick red locks of hair. Elsa didn't want to call her sister, she wanted _to be _with her_. _She didn't know how in the fuck to converse with her sometimes, she just wanted to _be. _If only shit were so simple.

The next day she spent the hours entirely alone. Thankfully, Olaf had a job and had told her he wouldn't be back until nearly Midnight, "but we should get together and talk sometimes, yeah?" She tore up his note and threw it out her window, grateful for the wind and living on the second floor of the complex.

Kristoff would have come over if she hadn't taken her spare set of keys away from him earlier, saying she was going to give them to Anna now. (She, obviously, had not.)

She felt like she was under her parent's careful watch again, worried that _somehow_, even without paints, she would accidentally kill her sister some other way. So they'd just kept them as separate as possible, busying Elsa with solitary activities while Anna played with friends.

Today Anna had left her over fifty texts, but Elsa didn't notice because her phone was off the entire day, too. She did notice the emails, though, but chose to ignore them.

_Fuck. Going for Most Horrible Sister of the Year award again? _She threw herself into sketching most of the day away, finding herself drawing Anna several times without consciously meaning to. The subtle curve of her cheeks, complemented with almond-shaped eyes and a bright smile made Elsa regret not ever calling Anna back. She had probably worried her younger sister sick.

She still didn't call.

_You're such a heartless bitch, what the hell is wrong with you?_ _She's never done anything to deserve this, to deserve a fuck-up of a sister like _you.

A marathon of some _Avatar: The Last Airbender _was the only thing that took her mind off Anna, if only for a couple of hours. At least until she remembered the time Anna had asked about the series during a meal with their parents, then looking everything up, and _then _wanting to borrow one of Elsa's DVDs of it.

She wished she knew why Anna kept trying.

"_You're all I have left, Elsa."_

But it had been three years now since their parents had died. Why still try?

"You're all I have left," Elsa whispered to the walls around her.

* * *

**A/N:** Elsa and Anna's parents were not so smart with what type of paints they bought for their eldest daughter. Wouldn't most parents buy non-toxic paints for children? Hm.


	5. sequence five

"H-hello?"

_Ah, shit. Anna. Why'd I answer without checking the name first? _Elsa didn't know what to say. _Hello, for starters? _She managed to stutter out her own greeting ("O-oh, hey, Anna"), feeling a wave of guilt (and a bit of relief) wash over her. Anna had called her first, saving Elsa the trouble, and she'd been too half-asleep to check the name before answering like a dumbass. In a romcom, this would have been "meant to be." But it wasn't and Anna was pissed at her now. In a very cute-as-fuck way, with her high-pitched anger flowing out all at once –

"Anna, take a breath," Elsa said, cutting across her sister's voice.

"No I will not!" She did anyway. Elsa heard her pause and breathe in, and laughed at her sister's stubbornness that hadn't held up. Anna told her that this was no "_fucking_ laughing matter, you had me worried TO DEATH, Elsa! To DEATH."

"Yet you're clearly still alive." Being riddled still with sleep apparently made her much more normal and talkative, much more like a proper older sister. Or just a proper, normally functioning human. The sun was glaring through the open slit in her curtains, and she wondered what in the hell time it was anyway.

"It's a quarter past Noon, if you were wondering."

"Did I say that out loud?"

"What?"

Elsa bit her lip, "Nothing."

"Don't _nothing _me, Elsa! You've nothing-ed me for the past, well, few days!"

_Actually the past several+ years if you were being honest. Fuck you, Anna. Fuck you for that pause, that 'well.' I know what you're thinking. But it's not because I _think _you're nothing. It's… it's not. At all._

She gulped and sat up in her bed, raking her fingers through her hair until the half-braid that had still been left in it overnight came undone.

She thought that perhaps she should say she was sorry. But what for? The list could go on, and on, and on… and there were just too many 'ons' to count.

"I've been busy."

_No you haven't. Unless you count being busy as "avoiding your little sister like she has the goddamn PLAGUE." _She felt like punching out a piece of her wall, but instead she just picked out her clothes for the day as if nothing in the entire world was bothering her. As if she was _literally_ Zen. At the very least, her parents had taught her how to put on a show. Her act wasn't as strong as it used to be, though, when she _had _to please them to get any sort of approval.

It was another moment before she heard Anna's voice on the other end of the line. Starting with the epitome of a 'forlorn sigh,' her little sister said, "I wish I knew what I'd done to upset you, Elsa. You know I really, really do love you. I wish you could see that."

Elsa, if she were a dramatic person – she told herself she wasn't – she might have said her heart had shattered at those three sentences. In reality, though, it had seized slightly (very, very slightly), and it felt like her lungs had tightened at the lack of intake-outtake air to carbon dioxide like usual.

_"You didn't do anything to upset me."_

"I didn't?"

Elsa needed to stop voicing her thoughts aloud.

"Nah, er," she cleared her throat, "You didn't. I've just been… I… I actually don't know. How have you been settling in?"

"You're changing the subject," Anna said.

"I am. Just, answer the question, please. I'm curious."

"I'm… all right. Okay. Rapunzel's nice, when she's around. Did you know that Sigmund Freud was partly a load of crap?"

"Huh?" Elsa had put her phone on speaker while she dressed herself. Underwear and then jeans, check – this pair had tears at the bottom from being too godforsaken long and always catching on her shoes, but whatever. Regular short-sleeved v-neck grey t-shirt, then a light green and purple plaid button-up over it (unbuttoned because it was still summer). And _done_, all while Anna talked to her about the downfalls of some of Freud's old-ass theories. She'd been reading for her Introduction to Psychology course she was taking for a humanities credit.

Elsa sort of envied Anna for being so good at managing her own time. Another thing Anna was better at than her. Better, better, _better_. That's all Anna was. _Inferiority complex, yeah? Wonder what Freud would have to say about that. Oh god. I am so fucking glad he never met _me.

She could listen to Anna talk for _hours_. She wished she could, if their relationship were more of the semblance of normal. Perhaps if she didn't get inappropriate butterflies in her stomach whenever her sister smiled at her, touched her, was just _kind _to her for no damn reason. _I've done nothing for her to receive her kindness. Just being someone's older sister isn't enough, it can't be._

"I'd like to meet for lunch sometime, Elsa," Anna said. Elsa paused while slipping on her shoes, unsure like nearly always of what to say. She knew what she wanted. She'd love to meet at the Italian bistro on campus (it wasn't like a high-scale restaurant, only better when compared to some other places on campus), order pasta and a bit of wine, sit at a table for two and watch as Anna messed up and dribbled sauce down her chin until Elsa had to reach over and wipe it off with a napkin.

But the bistro didn't serve wine. Again, it wasn't high-scale eating. And there were no true "tables for two," at least in the sense Elsa imagined it. And Anna wouldn't want to. She probably meant going to a fast food place on-campus and grabbing a quick meal, "catching up," and all that. Maybe even try to get more shit out of her without Elsa successfully being able to change the subject.

"I mean, er, if _you'd _be all right with it," Anna said, "But classes don't start until tomorrow, so I haven't had the chance to meet… too many people." She could practically see her sister brushing her hair behind her right ear; she was apt to do that when feeling at all uncomfortable. Well, that, and biting her lower lip, which fucking drove Elsa _beyond _keyboard-smash crazy.

_This is why you should have gone to Yulson, Anna. Well, that and plenty of other reasons. Shit._ She found herself agreeing to meet her sister at the dining hall the next afternoon for smoked salmon and whatever else they were going to serve. Anna was probably sure to check the menu that the university posted online. She hadn't really _meant _to agree to lunch with her sister, but after she had told her it would _just _be them – no Kristoff, no new-roommate-Rapuzel or her boyfriend, just… them, Elsa couldn't turn Anna down. She just couldn't. Anna wasn't pleading with her like a child, but there was something to her voice, _something _that made Elsa's resistance fall.

She also couldn't make herself come up with a good excuse to end the conversation until the front door to her apartment opening literally _handed_ her a chance for an exit. "Hey – hey, Anna," she said, "I've gotta go. Olaf's coming in and – "

"Olaf?"

"Oh, uh, new roommate. My apartment does come with another bedroom. I thought I'd told you…"_ No you haven't. What the hell is even coming out of your stupid-ass mouth anymore?_

"This is the first time we've spoken since I moved in," Anna deadpanned, but then her voice brightened again, "I want to meet him sometime, though! Maybe tomorrow after lunch?"

Elsa swallowed, guilt laden in her saliva. I_ haven't even really met him. Christ, the guy's so nice and then I just practically shove _him _away too. I'm a real fucking people magnet. _She told Anna "maybe, maybe not, depends on his schedule," but she was leaning a hell of a lot towards _maybe not. _

Maybe not was always the safest option when it came to social interactions. Less variables to deal with, more control.

Control was the most important thing.

But nowadays she felt like even that old for-show habit was slipping out of her reach. She needed to reign herself in. For the first time in what felt like forever, she missed her parents.


	6. sequence six

The campus was still damp from the storms earlier in the day, and Elsa felt desperately lonely. Yeah, she knew a couple of other people in her classes — Merida, Violet…. Merida….. Violet. Fucking hell, she could have sworn she knew more people. Maybe she was just… being forgetful. Fuck, but she hated having to ask people for their names, _again_. That was something else her parents hadn't liked, her troubles remembering other people's children's names at social functions. So _what_, she didn't have a perfect memory sometimes. She just remembered faces better than people's names most of the time. She nearly always had to associate someone's name with something else to remember it effectively.

Anna had always been the one to whisper other children's names to her at social events, and Elsa remembered how over the course of a year or so, Anna's voice had deepened just a tad bit — around the age of twelve or thirteen. It suited her well as her younger sister grew into a young woman. Even now, Anna, was more of a woman than Elsa — at least by society's damned standards that Elsa had nearly completely shrugged off in the months after their parents had died.

She could only wish that she'd look as good as Anna did in a dress. Though her sister could easily wear dresses that showed more skin, she didn't. Elsa was thankful and simultaneously pissed at her for keeping to "fabric-goes-to-the-knees-or-past" types of dresses.

"Hey," she said, hands stuffed in her front pockets. Anna's back was to her; the redhead started with a small gasp and turned to Elsa, a bright smile transforming her face from the shock it had shown just a split second before realizing it was Elsa. Anna shouldn't be this happy to see her. She'd fucked her over and been giving her the silent treatment for no goddamn reason besides her own wacked up emotions.

"Elsa! You made it!" Anna hugged her, and Elsa couldn't even think coherently enough to hug back. When Anna let go, she looked back at the menu and pointed at the side dishes available, "Which should I get? Mashed potatoes are a _definite_, of course, but should I get carrots or broccoli?"

Elsa based her decision on which was more likely to get stuck between Anna's teeth.

"Broccoli."

They actually just ended up sharing their vegetables, Anna trading broccoli pieces for Elsa's carrot bits and vice-versa. Anna was _adorable_, even with her eating habits. She bit the heads off the broccoli in one swipe of her mouth, then seeing Elsa there, she would pause and try to chew more daintily than she had bitten off. _Yeah, it's not like Mama or Father are here anymore. But we're still kind of stuck in old habits, huh? _Elsa cracked a tiny smile, lips shut lest she say something stupid like she tended to. But right now… right now, though, she felt that possibly… possibly, this was a glimpse into what their relationship _could _be, because at the moment Elsa felt… normal. Sort of. She just wanted to enjoy this slice of time with her sister without any fucked up thoughts entering her head. And so far, so pretty damn good — and they were almost done eating at that.

"So…" Anna drew out after they'd already talked about their new classes. She took a drink from her Coke and then continued, "This _Olaf._ Is he cute?" Her little sister grinned and placed a teasing hand on Elsa's forearm. She felt her face flush, but not for Olaf. 'Course, he was decent-looking for a guy. She managed to stumble out some description of him: black-ish hair, bed-head sorta, surprisingly proper attire most of the time despite his casual warmth, "Ah, and, uh, he's fond of wearing orange jeans for some reason. When he's not, uh, dressed up." She glanced at her sister's hand, still resting upon her forearm, and then looked back at Anna.

"Sounds pretty great to me – I'd _love _to meet him sometime," she paused and used her finger to stir the straw in her cup about a bit. Then, as she looked at Elsa again and they met eyes for a moment, Anna pressed her fingers just a little into Elsa's skin. Elsa's hand under the table that was resting on her thigh, now that she was done eating, froze.

"That is," Anna continued, "If you… wanted me to come over to your apartment." She let go of Elsa's arm and used her hand then to pull some of her hair behind her ear. And she bit her lower lip. Elsa looked away, then back, and then away towards the window beside them before she answered.

_Say yes. It's not that damn difficult; she's your SISTER, for god's sake. You're SUPPOSED to give her the damn spare key anyway! You're family. _It wasn't like she didn't _trust _Anna. She would trust Anna with her life, because for all the shit she'd given her little sister, Anna had never come back with anything that she _hadn't _deserved anyway. Yeah, Anna had sometimes had outbursts but they were _natural_, expected of any normal human being. Elsa could definitely trust her sister with ninety-nine percent of everything in her head.

Trust for herself, though, was next to nil. Trust that she could keep a lid on any intrusive sickening thoughts that dared enter her mind – no, no, _focus. Keep your head right. _She wrapped her arms around herself in a self-hug and looked at Anna again.

_Fuck it._

"D'you… do you want the spare key?" She felt like she was going to choke on her own fucking dry-as-shit tongue at any moment. But she couldn't take a drink of her water yet – no, no, then she might choke on it when Anna talked and make a worse fool of herself.

Anna seemed to have lost her ability to verbalize her thoughts for a few seconds, yet the growing happiness just _shined _off her face until she broke out in a wide smile… and also managed to forget the table that was between them.

She just noticed the tipping glasses before she felt the combination of half-finished Coke and water hit her long-sleeved t-shirt and… well, _shit_. She started _laughing_. Anna was so fucking _cute _she didn't give one fuck about her old-ass shirt with a few tiny holes near the lower hem. But Anna, oh god, Anna was saying "oh sorry sorry SORRY" over and over, "I was just so excited, oh god, I'm so sorry, Elsa!"

Anna was getting napkins and shoving them towards Elsa, "I was just… so shocked, you know?" Elsa was trying to pay attention, she was, but Anna was shoving the napkins at Elsa's chest and eventually she just pushed them and didn't let go soon enough one time and _well, ok then. Hands on boobs. Okay. Okay. _She knew she had to be blushing the shade of a beet by this point.

"Uh… uh…" _C'mon, brain, think, say, do shit! _"It's okay, it's…"

People were looking at them. Some guy let out a whistle when Anna came back again with the last napkins she could find and _ran _into Elsa because some of the spilt liquids had gone on the tiled floor, making her feet unstable as she tried to come to a stop _before _colliding with Elsa.

_Well, fuck._

Her sister was on top of her for the space of three seconds but her brain shut the hell up for at least thirty after that. Anna had to help her back up, Anna had to wave her hand in front of Elsa's face, and then also had to shake her older sister back to reality before Elsa's eyes finally came back into focus again.

And all she could say to everything that had just happened was, "…What?"

_Brain malfunction. Please refer to manual D, section 4, sub-section 1. Which does not exist. _Elsa felt Anna's hand on her cheek, asking something, but she felt like she was in a fucking hurricane at the moment.

"…okay? Elsa? Are you okay?"

"Huh?" _Back to semi-normal operations. Please remain calm and assume positions. _"Oh, uh, yeah, I - I am. Okay."

"I'm sorry," Anna said, taking her hand away. "I'll get it if you want to go back to ignoring me again, I'm so clumsy and stupid and – "

"No you aren't. And," Elsa reached down into her jeans' pocket, "here's the, uh, the key. For whenever. Well, not _really _whenever… just… well, you're reasonable." She held the key out.

Anna laughed and Elsa dropped the key into her sister's outstretched palm.

This was all going to go to shit, wasn't it? But it didn't, not for the present moment, anyway. Anna wrapped her hand around the key tightly, then put it in the purse she'd brought with her. No backpacks on the first day for the first-years, because it was well-known that only on the second day of classes would they be inundated with homework and the brunt of the syllabi would begin.

Elsa, though, already had assignments she needed to work on. That she more than likely _wouldn't _work on with plenty of time still left for herself. She still sucked at managing her time, but somehow she'd been passing the majority of her classes, at least in her major focus area after her own first semester at Kiernan.

Even Anna knew she was bullshitting when she tried to get away with the "I've got homework to do excuse." The redhead squinted at her, as if trying to read Elsa, trying to figure out how she really felt. She had given her the spare key to her apartment, but was now give her a straight lie to her face. _Of course you're confusing the fuck out of her you idiot. Jesus, can you be any more _plain_?_

But Anna said nothing, she only bit her stupid lower lip again and nodded. She should be getting onto her, calling her out on the blatant lying. But she wasn't.

"I'm coming over to your apartment tomorrow, though," Anna said, her face taking on a more serious don't-fuck-with-me tone, "You can ditch your homework for a couple hours for _me_ then, can't you?"

It wasn't really a question.

_Why in the fucking hell did I give her that fucking key. Why._

She wasn't ready for tomorrow. She never would be, not by the sound of Anna's voice when she'd basically just announced plain-as-day she was coming over, whether Elsa liked it or not. At least she'd given her several plus hours notice, though. Maybe she could get Olaf out of the way before then.

He picked up on a little too much already from their sparse interactions, the damn intuitive happy-go-lucky guy.


	7. sequence seven

**A/N:** lol at this point I feel I'm just throwing in shit about myself/things I like into these characters. But I guess that kinda makes sense. IF YOU'VE PLAYED ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE LAST OF US DON'T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS (i've managed to avoid major spoilers so far somehow jfc and too busy w/school to play it rn). I still feel a bit odd writing Olaf as a human dude, but not as odd.

* * *

"Hey, how do you feel about Bioshock?"

Olaf wasn't going away. No, he was spending his free time that afternoon setting up his PS3 in the living area and then asking Elsa if she played any video games.

She really hadn't wanted to connect with him on any sort of level besides, "Hey, we're both college students. We're only one year apart." The fact that he was so damn personable ruined any chance at a limited connection.

"My sister is visiting today."

Olaf shot his head up to look at her, "I - what? …Do you know how to follow conversations?" He appeared concerned at her growing lack of social skills. Of course she knew how to follow conversations, Jesus.

She rolled her eyes, "Yes, I know about Bioshock - I've played Infinite, and yes, I do know how to fucking _follow conversations_." Her arms crossed over her midsection, Elsa sat down on the couch across from their shared television (well, the one that _Elsa _had bought, but she wasn't going to make him pay anything for using it — she wasn't that much of a bitch, at least most of the time) and watched Olaf put his games into a shelving unite he'd bought ("We can share," he had said, "I don't mind").

"I've also played some of The Last of Us…" she watched him slide more cases into the lower shelf, "And GTA5… Assassin's Creed… yep. You have pretty good taste, Olaf." He turned his head around and grinned at her.

"I'd hope so!" When he settled his last case in the shelving, he turned his whole body around and asked, "So, your sister is coming over? I didn't even know you _had _a sister. You're an enigma, Elsa."

_As anyone could have told me. _She scratched at the side of her head nervously, though, and replied, "Yeah, uh, her name's Anna. She sort of looks like me, not totally, of course - takes a lot more after our mother, and she has red hair. Usually it's in two braids but sometimes she's lazy and just runs a brush through it. She's nice."

"Red hair?" Olaf's eyes lit up.

Elsa couldn't stop from chuckling a bit, "Not as bright orange as your jeans, though. What's your deal with the color orange anyway?"

He shrugged, "I've just always liked it. It's bright and warming, and - and - heh, I'll shut up." He scratched the back of his neck and extended his second PS3 controller towards her. "Wanna play something?"

She smiled, "Yeah."

Maybe this was going to be all right.

* * *

By four in the afternoon, she'd beaten Olaf more than a few times at AC: Revelations' multi-player mode, though once they'd gone online a couple other players had bested her. She didn't particularly like going online multiplayer. Olaf did, though. He liked teaming up with strangers and then getting Elsa back for assassinating his character in their own two-player events.

Her phone buzzed during one of their campaigns - they were actually working _together _this time - and it was her sister.

**Anna (16:47)**  
Hey Elsa! Me and Kristoff are headed over to your place now. Mind leaving the door locked so we can see if the key actually works? Haha.

_Kristoff is coming? Oh fuck no. Fuck, no. _Elsa hurried out a response.

**Elsa (16:48)**  
I thought it was just going to be you?

**Anna (16:50)**  
Well, I - um, I just, ah. He's.. mainly here in case I... needed the door picked? But if you want...

She furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head slightly.

**Elsa (16:51)**  
No, it's fine. Come on.

Elsa managed to tell Olaf a bit about Kristoff before the two arrived a few minutes later. Four people in her apartment at once - this was something new.

She felt her heartbeat quicken its pace as she heard footsteps coming up the stairwell, and then made to get to her feet when the lock on the door turned and opened. She heard her sister call out a questioning hello before pushing the door open the rest of the way. Anna broke into a smile when she saw her older sister, and Elsa barely saw Kristoff coming in behind her before Anna pressed herself flush against the blonde, wrapping her arms around in a tight hug.

"You're here!"

Elsa smiled a bit into Anna's shoulder, "Where else would I be?"

Anna pulled away slightly, looking at Elsa as if maybe her sister had been replaced with a look-a-like, but said nothing - she only shrugged the smallest amount. _She must be thinking that it's some kind of fluke that I'm actually here. Because this isn't you... is it? _She still wasn't sure why she hadn't run away from this situation already. Why she had allowed it to happen, why she couldn't really tell Anna "no" now. Maybe it was because their parents weren't there anymore to remind her of the importance of it.

_"But I don't have any paints anymore! Why can't I play with her without one of you always watching?"_

_"We're just trying to protect you both, Elsa."_

She shivered slightly as Anna pulled away completely and introduced herself to Olaf, who then promptly hugged her and then Kristoff. The bulk of a blond guy looked at Elsa out of the corner of his eye, but she only raised her eyebrows and shrugged. Once he noticed the PS3 sitting near the television, though, he was too enamored with it to care anymore. He and Olaf decided to play GTA together, leaving Anna and Elsa to themselves.

"Boys make fast friends, don't they?"

Elsa looked up at her sister from her place on the bed. They were in her room, and last time Elsa had checked, the door had still been open to look in on the two guys sitting on the sofa, wrecking the shit out of each other's cars.

But the door was shut now. When the hell had that happened?

"I wish girls did just the same," Anna continued. She looked shyly at her older sister, "I hope you don't mind. They were kind of getting loud."

Elsa shook her head, "It's fine - I... did someone not want to be your friend?" _Oh fuck. Why can't I play this older sibling role better? I should have asked her first, asked about how this first few days of uni were going for her, if she was making friends, liking her classes... god. I'm an idiot. _But maybe she could start acting more like a sister should now, if only... if Anna would just not bite the inside of her gum like that. And maybe if she didn't wear blouses that hugged her waistline so well.

_Stop thinking about that. Look at her face. Her. face. Damnit._

"Because if so," she said, meeting Anna's eyes again, "They don't know what they're missing out on." _What I've been missing out on all throughout my fucking life. _She hadn't really realized how much she'd missed Anna until the girl had placed herself in her life again.

Maybe in another universe she would have said something much smarter. She vaguely wondered if anyone like the Lutece twins would come and take her away to another universe, one where... they weren't sisters. Maybe then the condemning nags in the back and forefront (now) of her brain wouldn't exist anymore, tormenting her.

And maybe in that universe, she wouldn't ever make Anna cry.

She wasn't crying _now_, but Elsa could still hurt in her sister's eyes. She knew that she'd fucked up her words.

Anna seemed to want to say something, but couldn't. Maybe she wasn't sure if it was all right. Elsa moved to get off her bed but Anna said a soft "no" and came over to her.

"Can I?" Anna asked, gesturing to Elsa's bed. Elsa nodded, not quite fully aware of what her body or mind was even doing any longer. As Anna sat cross-legged near her, she felt a rush running through her ears - the white noise again. It drowned out part of whatever Anna was saying, even though Elsa was trying to listen. She was trying, but then Anna's hand was cupping her cheek, repeating her name.

"Elsa?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I... I'm having trouble thinking."

Anna looked at her in concern. "Did something happen to you?"

_If only you fucking knew. Could fucking remember. _

"What were you saying before? I'm sorry."

_I'm sorry I'm not better. For you. For anyone. _ She felt very small.

Anna twisted a piece of her hair around her finger. She didn't want to move on from the tiny confession Elsa had given her, _I'm having trouble thinking_ , the blonde could see that plainly on the younger girl's face. She couldn't go any further than that, _I'm having trouble thinking... because of you. _ It wasn't right.

Nothing was right.

When Anna could tell that her sister wasn't going to provide any new useful information willingly, she repeated herself.

"I wish _we_ could have been fast friends," she said quietly, the most unsure of herself she had been in a long time. Elsa felt her chest tighten, as if her heart itself hurt at the way she was seeing her little sister now, behind this closed door... just the two of them.

She had really fucked up.

_But how am I supposed to fix this, when I can't fix my own feelings? _ She had to at least shove them away for now, though. She could at least do _fucking that _ for Anna. Even if all she wanted to do was lay with Anna and kiss away every bit of suffering she had ever put the redhead through, everywhere visible on her body.

She wouldn't let herself think any farther than that, even if another part of her body let her know how wrong it was getting in her head. Elsa squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, willing everything but "being a big sister" away. And when she opened them again, she told Anna that she wished for the same.

"So why can't it be that way?" Anna asked, confusion peppering her words with a pain that impaled Elsa's heart.

Elsa hung her head, "Because..."

_Because I love you._

_More than just a sister._

_More than just a friend._

_Because I hurt you._

_What if I do it again?_

_I know I will._

"Because I don't know how to."

"But it's not that hard, Elsa! We're sisters! We're made to be friends!"

_I wasn't made right, then. _She asked Anna to leave, _please. _Anna put up a fight; Elsa hadn't really expected any different. As Elsa tried to get her sister out of her room, Anna struck her in the chest, not harshly, but enough.

It was an excuse for the distress in her voice, though, as she said, "Don't touch me again."

Her sister looked at her desperately, "_Why_ are you acting like this, Elsa?" Her voice rose in volume and pitch with each word. Elsa opened her bedroom door, forcing herself to not look at Kristoff and Olaf as they had clearly heard the situation getting out of hand in her room. She forcibly pushed Anna towards the front door until she had the redhead out on the landing.

She swallowed what felt like a gigantic lump in her throat, armed with only one throwaway explanation left, "I… Because I never wanted you to come here in the first place! I left Arendelle to get away from _you_, Anna!"

_Oh god… no. No. _Anna's face twisted into something unrecognizable.

Kristoff pushed her out of the way to get to Anna as her knees started to give way, and Elsa didn't remember breathing at all until somehow, at some point she was laying in her bed, curled into the fetal position.

She had hurt Anna again, and her sister's agonized face was burned into her retinas.

* * *

**A/N:** Yep, left Elsa "telling" Anna she didn't want her at this uni with her because it in fact did not happen. Ever.


	8. sequence eight

**A/N:** Time skip! I wasn't going to keep it going day-by-day because that would be long and boring and pointless for this fic. Things will slow down in just a little bit, though. Also, thank you for the favs, reviews, follows. I meant to say that last time but forgot because I'm a dumbass. My same dumbass self only just figured out that I hadn't put Anna and Elsa down as a pairing yet on the story's filters, so that was done… last night. At least I think it was last night. Anyway! Thanks again for reading and all that shiz. (Towards the end of this chapter, the M-rating starts to, well, make a bit more sense. Besides the whole "coarse language" thing and everything else that has already suggested a M-rating. Also, a word to the wise: I have only written M/M fics before, so I'm sure my _unsureness_ at writing F/F-_anything_ will be apparent and I apologize for anything that sounds shit.)

* * *

The world was a dismal and sullen place, and it was November. Shitty November. For two months plus around a week now, she had not had a conversation with her younger sister. Elsa had, at times, come into close enough contact with her while on the university's campus, but neither of them said anything to the other. Anna's eyes, when she plucked up the courage to look at them for even less than a second, had lost something in them.

Olaf had tried talking to her shortly after everything had imploded.

"Why didn't you say anything before she decided?"

"I didn't know _how_."

"Do you… know how to say anything? You have to… you…" he scratched the back of his neck, a nervous habit of his Elsa had come to pick up on.

He didn't understand. He had no siblings. However, despite both of their various blunders around each other, he still made sure that she ate and went to class as best as he could.

She tried to tell him that she wasn't his responsibility.

"I'm aware of that," he had said while she rested her head on his lap, her eyes shut as he brushed his fingers through her hair. "But I don't want to live around someone who's… given up on living. Not that you HAVE, I don't meant that. And anyway, I don't want to have to sublease this fine deal I got." He smiled down at her.

She blew air from between her lips, somehow feeling very thankful for him right now, "You don't skirt around the truth, do you?"

"I find it counterproductive. But, I do also… for some reason - friendly of course, you know - _care_ for you. Somehow. I'm not quite sure how that happened."

She wasn't sure either. Maybe he was just another fluke in humanity, though a much more pleasant one than herself.

* * *

Kristoff had come around every so often to try and get anything out of her that he could, but she had refused him several times.

"I _thought _you had told her!"

"I couldn't."

She had made to shut the door in his face, but he was having none of it this time. The hulking blond had pushed past her into the apartment, shoving his mobile phone into her hands before he shut the door against the cold October winds passing through.

"She's fucking _heartbroken_, Elsa."

It felt like an invasion of privacy, but Kristoff _had _willingly handed her - well, shoved - the phone at her. The phone _pinged! _while she just stared dumbly at Kristoff's wallpaper of his reindeer, Sven, and himself - taken by whom, she couldn't fathom. (Maybe Anna.)

The text was from her little sister.

"Read it out loud," Kristoff grunted out, falling back onto her sofa beside Olaf. Elsa scanned the couple of sentences on the phone and swallowed hard.

_"Please don't go over there_ again,_Kris. It'll only make her think worse of me than she already does. :("_

Think…" she wet her dry mouth with her tongue, "Think worse of her?"

_Oh god you did worse than just simply fuck the fuck up. She thinks you… you truly hate her. Obviously, though… what else could she think after what you said to her? _Her brain didn't, couldn't think any further than that. She wished that Anna didn't think _anything _of her, that she could just brush off what she'd said. But that wasn't like her little sister at all.

It came tumbling out from her lips before she realized it, "I really don't want to have to handle this." This couldn't be just some hellish nightmare, could it? She didn't say those words. She couldn't have. That wasn't _her_ to be that much of a goddamn blunt bitch.

But it was.

"You're going to have to at some point, Elsa."

Kristoff. She made to say something to him, but by the time she turned to look for him, he was shutting the apartment door. More like slamming it, honestly. The man hardly knew his own strength.

Olaf grimaced, more at the situation itself than at Elsa.

* * *

Most every time she saw a flash of red hair, she went out of her way to avoid coming into contact with whoever had it, even if the person with red hair _wasn't _Anna. Soon enough she was going to acquire a complex about red-heads. But that didn't bother her too much, considering she didn't have a thing for red-heads. Except, apparently, her own sister.

In the past couple of months, she pretty much had acquired a track record of rage-quit dreams that included her and Anna, and a variety of conversations and actions… scenarios that were not befitting of two sisters. Sometimes when she woke from one, Elsa thought that everything might be all right again — until she remembered it was only a dream. Only her mind playing tricks on her.

After a particularly eventful night's sleep, Elsa felt at her wit's end. It was in the middle of November, and she decided to seek out Kristoff at his usual favorite spots for lunch. He was eating a hamburger and had stared her down once he spotted her coming towards him, his eyes narrowing.

Undeterred (or at least _trying _to look it) by the way he was looking at her, she walked up to him and extended her hand towards him, "I'd like to see your phone. _Please._"

"You shouldn't be here," he said, and there was a hint of apprehension in his tone.

She blinked a few times before speaking again, "What? Why?"

From behind, a warm hand settled on her shoulder.

_"Probably because I'm here."_

Involuntarily, Elsa swallowed - probably to keep bile from rising up and out of her throat. How stupid could she have been, to not figure that Anna was probably going to be with Kris sometimes? Even though they were each other's exes, they were still friends. But maybe, _maybe_ she had halfway wished that Anna would be with new friends, or maybe even her roommate and the girl's boyfriend.

"Would you like to sit with us, Elsa?" her sister asked, the hand removed from her shoulder as she took her place next to Kristoff. The blond man put an arm around Anna's shoulders protectively, making it more than apparent who he was with. Elsa felt a bit hungry, but at the same time she felt a burning pit in her stomach, as if she might be ill if she tried to eat. No food, then. Not right now.

She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and sat across from them both, settling unsure hands in her lap, between her thighs, and crossed her legs. If Anna and Kris couldn't hear her pounding heart, she would be surprised. It felt like it might explode, breaking the bone and the muscle and skin layers until she was certainly dead.

She already felt that way, though. Unrecognizable, a layer of clear ice between her and the two people she had once had right on her side. Two people who she had come to this university with, just a few months ago, utterly at outward peace and contentment. Now she couldn't even fake it all on the outside, how uncomfortable she felt, how out-of-place. She moved her arms, hugging them around herself.

"Why did you want to see Kristoff's phone?" Anna asked her, chewing purposefully on her own burger. Elsa took the moments that her sister looked at her, actually _spoke _to her, to get a good overview of what she'd done. But Anna looked… better? When was the last time she'd gotten a decent look at her? Over a month ago? But now… now Anna had herself together, at least. Hair braided in two plaits like she usually had it, her younger sister was dressed warmly in a pea coat, gloves she'd just taken off before eating, and a beanie still sitting atop her head.

Elsa shifted her hands, rubbing them together in her lap, "I… I wanted to know how you were doing. Anna."

"And you wanted to look through Kris's phone for that?"

"I… I know I should have called you," she halfway whispered. She raised her head slightly and met Anna's eyes, "I'm sorry."

Her sister's answer came swiftly, "That's not going to work."

"Wh… What else am I supposed to do?" she asked, placing her hands on the table, fidgeting with her fingers. _Not ignore you for a few months, that's what. As if _time _will fix everything. It won't. You should know that by now. _It didn't stop her from wishing for such a simple fix, though.

At least her heart wasn't pounding so harshly any longer. Though every time she made herself sneak looks and longer gazes at her sister, Elsa remembered the dreams. Dreams in which things went lovely, they went horrible, they were tragedy and ecstasy and all in between. To a degree, this reality was a letdown on her already ravaged emotions. This was reality, though, and it gave her body small shocks in a kind of repetitive motion, as if she was working on getting used to it all.

"You… Elsa, you are going to…" Anna exchanged a look with Kristoff before turning back to her, "Um. You do have access to our parents' funds, don't you?"

The comment threw Elsa off, "Um, uh… yeah, I do. Why?"

"We're going Harstad, or just… close by there. To a cottage on a fjord for break. We'll rent one for a couple of weeks, and Kristoff has agreed to check on us twice during that portion of the break. Once a week."

Kristoff allowed himself an easy smile - the first he'd shown this entire time, "Just to make sure you haven't killed each other."

Elsa felt the question on the tip of her tongue, but knew better than to ask it now. Not after what she'd done to her sister – she knew she should be _grateful _that Anna was even speaking to her now, let alone inviting her to a fucking _cottage on a fjord_ for two weeks. Alone.

It should be a damn dream come true. In another world, it probably would be – she could imagine it being a romantic getaway for them both _(bad, Elsa, bad)_, even if it was going to be in fucking cold December – they could still watch the Northern Lights so clearly in the country's polar nights. But she knew Anna wasn't taking her there for some fluffy reason, a chance to spend some time together for "familial bonding."

Anna hadn't even _asked _her if she wanted to go; she knew she still had a choice, though – everyone always had some sort of choice. Yet if she _chose _to not go, any sort of positive or even _neutral _relationship with her younger sister, her only fucking real family _left_, wouldn't exist any longer. She knew that Anna had her limits – this wasn't some fucking fairy tale, after all. Elsa knew she was lucky even now, that Anna had just left her… like she had every reason in the _world _to. But here she was, giving her… some kind of chance. That's all Elsa could see it as.

So she agreed to withdraw the money needed, come fucking hell or high water. She needed to make everything up to Anna, and to quell the idiotic, sickening feelings she felt towards the redhead. Elsa needed to be Anna's _sister_. She could do this, she could – explain it all, without every really explaining the whole truth. It was what she'd been doing ever since she'd nearly poisoned Anna when they kids, after all.

_She doesn't need to share any of your burdens. They're your load to carry. Only yours._

The self-blame and shame burned in her stomach hours later, her mind carried away into the fantastical imaginings of being alone with her sister in a reclusive cottage on a fjord. It all mixed in with the lust and arousal as her fingers crept up her inner thigh, settling inside the slip of her underwear. When she found that she was already wet from all the insane thoughts she'd had concerning her and her sister in the past several hours, Elsa groaned, and with conflicting feelings, brought herself a small spot of carnal relief.

It didn't last for long, though. As the temporary fog in her brain lifted, she realized she had softly moaned her own sister's name as she finished.

_What the hell is fucking _wrong _with you_?


	9. sequence nine

**A/N:** Happy (late for those of you east of the Eastern US Time Zone now, my apologies!) Valentine's Day! :)

* * *

Finals were upon the campus, and due to the dropping temperatures, the school itself looked nearly dead. People came out only for their examinations and for meals - or sometimes to meet others and rush towards someone's car to travel somewhere.

As for Elsa, she was relieved that Anna had started to text her small things after their conversation over lunch a few weeks prior, even though it hadn't actually included a lunch for the pale blonde. Behind her initial relief at the contact between them again, though, a pit of guilt and shame developed in the base of her stomach, gnawing away at her like a searing flame. Not everything was fixed, and it was a long way still from ever bearing any real resemblance to normal.

On the dawn of one of their last days on campus, Elsa received a call from Anna. Though she could hardly refer to dawn in the sense that most people did elsewhere on the planet. They weren't above or right at the Arctic Circle, but the university was close enough - just perhaps one hundred fifty or so kilometres south of it - that dawn, coming at just a couple of hours before Noontime, was treasured even more than usual.

Anna had never been a morning person - not as if Elsa was honestly much of one either - but her sister had had to sign up for classes starting before 8:30am each day this semester. (The joys of being a first-year.) Elsa's, being in her third and last year, were later - never starting before ten or eleven am. She still liked to get them over with before four or five at night, though, and studio courses could easily drag on for two and a half or more hours.

Her bedroom was scarcely lit, with a small blue tinged nightlight under her desk and the slit of sunlight that came in through the space between her equally blue-tinged curtains. The phone was a minuscule sun unto itself, though.

She yawned into the speaker. "H-hello?"

"_Elsa-a, _hi," Anna said, drawing her name out a little. The pale blonde felt a small shiver run through her body; she was still so thankful that her sister was even talking to her (_I don't fucking deserve this), "_I've got a small solo in the music department's concert tonight. I was wondering… I've still got an extra ticket lying around…"

"Hmm?" Elsa drew her spare hand back through her messy hair.

"Would… would you maybe want to come?"

_Why wouldn't I? Oh god, just say it._

"Why wouldn't I?"

_Instructions: don't open the can of worms, whatever you do (failure, failure, _failure to heed simple instructions,_ Elsa._ Why'd she have to listen to her gut. The silence between them, however far apart they _actually _were, sent a butcher knife right through her. Anna cleared her throat, however, and went on with a small laugh, patching everything up as usual - hardly skipping a beat.

"Ahhh, I could think of a few, but anyway. Shall I not disguise my orders as requests? Hm? Is straightforward _better_?" Elsa's cheeks _burned _like hot coals; she could practically see the teasing smirk crossing her sister's face, the old mischievous glint to her eyes whenever she acted like this to persuade Elsa to do something she wanted (she always got what she wanted). This time, however, the blonde woman doubted Anna was really trying to tease her so light-heartedly after basically _ordering_ her to come to a cottage in the damned freezing cold Harstad for part of the break.

Still, Elsa felt an upward tug on her lips. She smiled slightly and said, "I'm going to _come_, silly. I wouldn't miss it for the world, to be frank." She twisted some of her loose hair around a finger, knowing this wasn't really like her, to be so straightforward with her sister - to say what she was _really _thinking. She'd always wanted to be more a part of her little sister's life, and even though she could have started to attempt to mend their relationship after their parents had died, and she _knew_ she should take care of the then-sixteen year old Anna - their uncle Oaken had come in. With him there, then, she'd shrugged it all off on him while she went off to Kieran for the first time, only coming home during the breaks.

He had made it too easy, because he was that kind of "hands-on" sort of uncle when he did get off work at the sauna. Anna had always loved it when he would braid her hair into long, and quite beautiful, pigtails. Elsa had always refused him, though; if anyone else was ever going to play with her hair again for free, it would be Anna.

However, it had only been herself since their parents had passed. Excluding her hairdresser who was paid for the services she gave, Elsa always fixed her own braid when and if she felt like it. She had never been great at it, because her mother hadn't bothered to teach her to do it properly herself yet. Not that it was a _fine_ skill someone had to practice over and over again before mastering… Elsa just failed at messing with her own hair, period. Most of the time she just ran a quick brush back through it, spraying something to hold it moderately, and that was it. Anna, though, she loved their uncle and how he'd fix her hair up - for being such a big-boned man, he was fantastic at it, too. She wished sometimes that she treated him kinder.

_—You're being quite too kind, Els - trying to get back in my good books?_

"H-huh?"

"I said, Elsa, you're coming with Kristoff. He'll be coming to get you! At, er, around six-thirty. I want _you two _to get yourselves some good seats, so I can see you both while I'm on the stage!"

_Oh fuck no. First hearing shit, then… this? I fucking can't. But I have to. I _want _to. I need to. She is your sister. SISTER. This is what sisters do. Support each other. Right?_

"All right," she said. Taking a look at her clock, she asked, "Don't you have a class you need to be getting to?"

"I…" a pause. "I, oh _shit_, yeah - I do. Didn't know you knew my schedule, Elsa! I'll… I'll see you tonight, yeah?"

She barely had to force the smile that Anna couldn't see, "Yeah."

* * *

"Please don't fuck this up, Elsa."

"Thanks, but my brain's already telling me that. Always."

"You're bad at listening to it, though."

"Makes sense."

Kristoff eyed her at the light they'd stopped at. He hadn't dressed up, she hadn't dressed up - this wasn't a date, and they both wanted the other to know it. He still wasn't acting like his old self around her -

"Look," she heaved a stupidsigh, hating herself anew, "I should have _told Anna, I know. _I can't imagine what the hell you had to see the few months we weren't speaking to each other." Her heart clenched within her chest - she didn't really _want _to know.

Kristoff grit his teeth and tapped all ten of his fingers in harsh rhythm on the steering wheel. When the light turned green, he told Elsa that Anna had been strong as a damned buck, once she had emptied herself out. "For a few days between the two, she was like… nothing. Like a fucking shell. She's strong as hell, Anna is, but even she's got… limits. And for you to just _go off _on her like that, when she did NOTHING to deserve it - !"

"I _know_, Kristoff, I…" She shuddered and drew her arms around her chest, but gained no comfort from it. "I keep fucking up, ever since we were little."

"She used to tell me that you two were closer once."

"Shit _happened_, Kristoff." She didn't feel like explaining it any other way, because they were here now, and, "FUCK! Kris, turn!"

"WHAT THE HELL!?"

"You… you missed it. The... the..."

"What?!" He hadn't turned in time, and they'd almost ended up in a damn ditch. Elsa waved him on, trying to slow her heart rate. Breathe in, out. In… Jesus fucking Christ. Trust the man who preferred riding a reindeer to drive, right? What the hell had she been thinking. She and Anna had only been lucky on the ride up here a few months ago.

A few minutes later they managed to find a parking space only a block from the auditorium. "For someone who broke down and screamed at her sister that she'd _never wanted her here anyways_," Kristoff said as they got out of the car and started walking briskly towards the building, "You got really worked up over turning at the right street to see her here tonight."

"What can I say," Elsa grumbled, her hands shoved into her coat's pockets, the lower half of her face hidden by a scarf to protect from the cold and the wind, "I've fucked up enough for a lifetime already."

Kristoff paused, watching Elsa walk ahead for a few steps.

She knew she was confusing the hell out of him, but this wasn't the time.

* * *

**Kristoff (19:07)**  
_What the hell is so difficult about your relationship with Anna?_

Phones dimmed to their lowest, neither of them particularly cared about the start of the concert. Anna wasn't coming up until at least the half-hour mark of the one hour event, if not later.

**Elsa (19:08)**  
_I… I fucked up when we were little and almost killed her._

That was, at least, easier to say than, "Hey! After so many years of basically ignoring her, she still gives a damn about me! She still _loves _me and I don't know how to _feel _about that except _confused_. And, on top of that, she's cute as hell and I'm somehow _attracted to my own sister_."

It was still _a_ truth. Part of the whole truth, too.

She felt a hand suddenly grab tightly onto her wrist, "Follow. Me." It felt more a threat than anything else, the way Kristoff's eyes pierced her own, "This isn't for texting."

She reluctantly agreed, and when they stood out in a corner of the auditorium's lobby, Kristoff told her that it was all going to be nothing important anyway, at least until Anna came on the stage. "But…" he went on, making direct eye contact with Elsa, "What the hell? How did you almost _kill _Anna, and why didn't I know about it before? Isn't that something… I don't know,_ important?_ Me and Anna dated for two years, mind you, and _she never mentioned it. _She mentions everything, Elsa! _Everything!_ I swear to God, I know every little trivia fact there is to know about Anna and everyone she feels close to!"

Elsa twiddled her fingers, her voice low, "Because… because she can't remember. It, um, ever… happening?"

"What?" Kristoff scratched at his scalp furiously, mussing up his hair, "What the _hell_?! Why doesn't she?" He gripped her shoulders and shook her a bit, "What did you do, Elsa?"

She grimaced under his gaze and cringed at his actions, shrinking into herself. _It's just like what Father did. It's… _She swallowed and tried to remember that she wasn't a little kid, and Kristoff was definitely not her father. He was just… protective. Of Anna. Like their father had been. Had always been, more so than with her. Which was why she'd hardly been able to interact at all with her little sister after it had happened, at least without fears of him finding them.

She'd just wanted to_ see_ Anna tonight, to start _trying _to make everything up to her. And now… this. _Goddammit._

"She... she swallowed some of my paints when I went off to the bathroom. We were… we were both children, Kris." He had let go of her by now, looking unsure of what to do with his hands any longer. "She… she was… _poisoned_. And I… I should have made her come with me, but… but…" _Fuck, don't start rambling. Don't._

Thankfully, Kristoff shushed her. His face was rather unreadable for once, a mix of confusion and understanding.

"But... you... yourself, didn't poison her?"

Elsa's jaw went slack, "N-No! I never would have!"

Kristoff chewed on the inside of his mouth, "Then... you understand that's not your fault, right, Els? That was just... just _Anna being Anna. _Anna being a bit stupid, more than a bit, actually. That wasn't your fault, Elsa."

"But... but..." she grappled for words, hearing her father, her mother, seeing it all again in her head, and it just _couldn't _be true. It _had_ been her fault.

The blond man placed a finger over her lips. "Why doesn't Anna remember it?" But he didn't take his finger away, he just stared off at some spot above her head until she saw a look of realization settle in his eyes. He let out a soft gasp and looked back down at her, removing his finger and muttering a quick sorry. She shook her head, not really caring at this point - she didn't feel like any of this could be real. Elsa could hear the concert muffled beyond the set of doors they'd come out of a couple of minutes ago, wondering when she could go back in and just forget everything... just watch Anna. Just Anna.

But Kristoff was saying something, "...the detergent story! That was it. But it... wasn't detergent?"

"No." Elsa walked over to a bench on the side of the lobby and sat down on it, bringing her knees up to her chest and resting crossed arms on them. She met Kristoff's eyes for a moment and then averted them, "Papa... _Father_ told me the anesthetic had given her likely permanent amnesia of the past week or so, before and including the incident. When she woke up, she couldn't remember why she was even there."

"Why not tell her the truth?" Kristoff had sat down near her by then, cross-legged on the floor.

"I... I'm not sure. They must have thought it would be best to just get rid of the paints entirely, no risk of it happening again. And if they told Anna, and if she figured out that was why they'd gotten rid of my paints, she would have..." Elsa's felt her voice hitch.

_She would have fought for you to get them back._

_Why did they do something so extreme?_

Kristoff placed a hand on her knee - he was on his feet again now - and then offered one of his hands to her. "C'mere," he said. He helped her to her feet, and without warning, pulled her into a hug.

"You need to tell her about this," she heard him whisper beside her ear. "She only deserves the truth, doesn't she?"

_And so much more._ Elsa burrowed her head into his chest, nodding slightly in agreement. She only hoped, that maybe... maybe if she could tell Anna this truth, her _other _feelings would disappear, if magic could exist for just one day and take it away. Maybe _they _were just an unfortunate result of this secret, manifested from all of the confusion and pain that had gone hand-in-hand with it. Just maybe.

But something still nagged away at the back of her mind.

_"Let's go back in, yeah?"_

"Huh?" She was snatched from her thoughts, and broke the hug with Kristoff. "Oh... oh, yeah. Right."

* * *

Anna sang a piece called "Synnøve's Song," accompanied by another music student on piano. Her sister could play the piano herself, but she... she was amazing. Just as a soloist for the small piece. Elsa and Kristoff had made it back barely in time for Anna to have never noticed their absence at all - some small stroke of good fortune for _once _in her life. Elsa had remembered hearing the song before, even as a child when she and Anna had still played together freely.

When Anna had started the first lyric, her sister had scanned the audience. Kristoff made to wave to get her attention, but Elsa had just stopped him before he got it high in the air. Anna, though, with her sharp eyes, had seen his arm start to go up. Yet she didn't focus on him for long - her eyes went to Elsa, breaking into a little smile. It looked a bit sad as well, and Elsa didn't want to think it, but she couldn't stop herself.

_"Now thank you for all_  
_Since when we were small_  
_And played together_  
_In the woods and made-believe._  
_I thought _  
_the playing would have gone on..._

_"I sat and waited _  
_So many nights_  
_And looked out there under_  
_The pine hill;_  
_But shadows made_  
_The mountain dark,_  
_And you, you didn't find_  
_The way."_

She tried to say it with her eyes:

_I'm so sorry, Anna._

Her voice was beautiful.

* * *

**A/N afterword:** The entire lyrics of the song can be found at norwegianmelodies dot com slash translations dot htm and just scroll until you find the right one. Thanks again for reading, reviewing, fav'ing, and following!


	10. sequence ten

**A/N:** Hello! I neglected to mention in the previous chapter that when Anna sang that song, she would have sung it in Norwegian. Actually, as this takes place in Norway, every conversation and thought (et cetera) would be in Norwegian realistically. However, I do not know Norwegian. (They only typically offer Spanish and French as foreign languages in my area of the US, and I don't even really know Spanish despite about taking four years of it.)

Again, thanks for the reviews, favs, and follows! :)

* * *

"I see you made up with your sister," a bright voice called, drawing out the last word happily. Elsa glanced up from where she'd been reading a text from Anna -

_I'll see you in a bit, then! xo A_

- and Olaf was leaning against his doorframe in their apartment, hands halfway in the pockets of his jeans (orange again, though he did trade them out for black and blue jeans at other times; orange was still clearly his favorite, though). He had an equally bright smile illuminating his face as he continued, "I'm glad, Elsa."

"How did you know it was Anna who'd texted me?"

"I've noticed over the past few months that _she's_ the only one who ever makes you smile like that."

"Like - like what?" she stuttered, failing to stop herself from blushing. She just touched the phone mindlessly a few more times, finding reason in it to not look at Olaf while she gathered herself together again.

"Like…" she heard him making his way over to her, "…like _summer's_ come and everything's all right with the world. It's so… so _carefree_._" _Elsa suddenly felt his hand on her shoulder, nearly dropping her phone in the process. She swallowed and tucked the device into her coat pocket, tilting her head up to smile at him.

He laughed, "No, not the same. C'mon." She took the hand offered her and enveloped the guy in a warm hug, knowing by now how much he loved them - and, to be honest, she could use a few more hugs herself. He squeezed her tight before letting go, "I hope you and your sister have an amazing break."

"You're too nice, Olaf," she said, rubbing the palm of her hand across the back of her neck.

"Better than being too mean!"

She couldn't argue with that, just the same as she couldn't prevent herself from smiling the next time she got a text from Anna several minutes later.

"There it is again," Olaf remarked with a gentle smile, "I'm much happier now that she's making you smile like that again."

Elsa momentarily froze, "What did she make me do before?"

_But you already know, don't you? _He had paused his game on the TV, resting steepled hands against his lips, his eyes shut. He took his hands away after a second's hesitation, eyes opening again, and made brief eye contact with her before lowering their gaze towards the carpet.

"After your falling out, I don't know if you remember, but I tried to bring it - _her_ - up… Anna. Whenever I mentioned her name," his eyes flickered to hers again, "Your face crumpled up into a despair I can't fathom how deep, and I hope I never see it again. But I never mentioned her name after seeing you like that. I'm sorry for bringing it up, I…"

She felt like utter shit. Wringing her hands together, she looked down at them before gathering the courage to reach out to him and put her hands on top of his.

"Don't apologize." _I was the one who fucked up. _"I just…"

He cracked a smile at her, though it was still tinged with some kind of sadness, "You just really love her, don't you?" Elsa's grip on his hands tightened involuntarily.

Someone knocking on their front door rescued her from answering him.

And her little sister nearly _crushed _her in a hug when Elsa opened it up.

"I haven't been here in forever!" she exclaimed, her arms wrapped securely around Elsa's shoulders. She smelled of that beautifully agonizing spearmint shampoo again, and it ruined Elsa's senses. She mumbled an apology into the crook of the redhead's neck - thankfully she wasn't asked to repeat herself. She just felt Anna stiffen, or maybe she hadn't at all.

She let Anna control the hug, only letting go after her sister started to back away and release. _Anything to try and do better by you. _

It was only when the embrace was broken that Elsa got a good look at her sister. Anna had thrown on an oversized olive-colored sweater and a beige scarf haphazardly wrapped around her neck. Fingerless gloves covered her hands, and jeans tucked into black boots that still had some snow on them. She hadn't bothered putting her hair into even one braid today; it hung loosely around her face, framing it…. _Fuck, she's beautiful. _

_Stop staring. Stop. _Elsa worked out the tension that had somehow gathered in her muscles, her bones. She rolled her shoulders and gave her _fuckin' gorgeous (don't say it out loud) _sister a kind smile, "You still have the key, right? Feel free to use it from now on."

_Now that I'm not telling you to fuck off. Damn it. _

"I'm sorry."

They both said it nearly in sync.

"Don't - " Elsa started, her voice straining.

"Kristoff's waiting for us!" Anna interrupted her, smiling - but it wasn't real.

It was painfully obvious.

Nothing was ever this simple to mend.

* * *

She should have realized that at some point during the drive their schedules for next semester would become the topic of conversation. Elsa didn't feel like elaborating on hers, though, "Ah, it's just a couple more required classes I have to take just so I can get my degree." She couldn't help but nervously fidget with her hair, making scarce eye contact with Kristoff and even less with Anna as she instead favored the view outside of Sven. Kristoff's grandfather Pabbie was actually bringing the real flesh-and-blood reindeer Sven up in another week so he and Kristoff could spend some time together.

"Gotta find something to do while you two sisters have your _sisterly_ time," he'd said around half and hour ago when they'd been talking about it. She'd seen Anna's smile at his utterance of the word "sisterly" when referring to them both. Elsa had just slunk a bit more into her seat in the back.

It was when they caught the ferry that took them over to the part of Harstad where they'd be staying — Anna had provided her a small list of potential cottages she was interested in — that the three of them took their separate ways. Kristoff would be staying in Narvik, where Olaf was from.

When Anna had gone into a convenience store to grab some snacks and drinks, Kristoff had turned to her and said, "He kept _asking _over and over, if I'd like to stay with him over the break. And, you know that guy, right?"

_Rhetorical, of course. _She'd nodded anyway.

"Well," Kris continued, "it's kind of difficult to say no to him, y'know?"

"I noticed you two hit it off pretty well over video games, but after…" she glanced away, "That." Anna was coming back. She cleared her throat and turned back to him, "When, uh, when did you two see each other?"

"He gave me his phone number."

_"Ah. _I'm dumb, excuse me."

Kristoff gave her one of his genuine smiles again - she felt like it'd been too long since he'd last done so, "No you're not. Just a bit misguided." He winked at her and leaned over to open up the passenger seat for Anna, who nearly had her hands full of stuff.

"Why wouldn't you let one of us come in with you?" he asked, grabbing some of the items from her and tossing a bag of chips back at Elsa. The blonde started and just barely caught it before it smacked her in the face.

"I…" Anna climbed up into the SUV, grunting as she shut the door behind her, her cheeks tinged with pink from the cold, "I thought I could handle it on my own."

Elsa involuntarily giggled, covering her mouth with her free hand. Her sister craned her neck back, face towards her, pouting. "_What_?" Her tone was mock-angry.

_She's so fucking adorable. _

But she couldn't just say that, she couldn't. She stopped herself and said, "You're so stubborn, Anna."

_What a great, award-winning comment! Stubborn. That's not what you really think, is it? Maybe… adorably stubborn? _The way her fringe flopped onto her face, plus the stray strands of longer hair that got in the way of Anna's vision, _and _the pout that was still partly present… she was some kind of strange mix of sexy and adorable.

How long had it been now since she'd last hated herself? She wondered if she'd broken a record between now and the last time she'd viewed her sister inappropriately.

Elsa loathed herself even more for the flame of jealousy that reared its ugly head when Kristoff chuckled and with a gentle hand, fixed Anna's hair for her. The older girl _knew _that the two in the front seat were just friends now, but something still… Elsa had made a pained expression when she knew that neither Anna nor Kris were looking back towards her.

* * *

With Kristoff gone now, though, Elsa felt like her buffer was missing. She knew Kristoff would hate being reduced to a simple buffer (_"I'm more than that, Elsa"_), an intermediary, but _god_. He gave both her and Anna something else to focus about besides themselves… and everything concerning said subject.

Harstad, at least, served a temporary reprieve from having to make _small talk _with her own sister.

_Christ. How long have you _known _her? _Elsa gestured to the businesses and a small pet shop, where she and Anna took solace from the cold for several minutes.

"Elsa! Come look!" Anna said, tugging on the blonde's wrist. Elsa acquiesced to her little sister's pull and was confronted with a view of… "Are those guinea pigs?" She squinted at the rodents and tried to remember if that was the correct name for them. She knew they weren't rats… and weren't hamsters smaller?

Anna laughed, "Yes, you dummy." She followed her sister's finger that pointed at the sale price, and above read: "GUINEA PIGS (FEMALE)" in bold, black lettering.

"Oh."

"Oh?" Anna was smiling at her! She… oh god, _why the fuck are you so damn cute? _She wanted to caress Anna's cheek and sneak a kiss… somewhere, anywhere… was she allowed? Her mind fought over the predicament for a little less than three seconds.

She settled for running a few fingers through Anna's gorgeous red hair, laying a simple peck to the younger girl's small patch of exposed forehead. _That's safe, right? A good… medium. _And yet, her body still wanted _more. _The id and superego fighting relentlessly within her, and so she drew back from the comforting, loving action far too quickly, attempting to hide her face. Anna, however, was having none of it.

"Elsa…" her sister's voice was gentle and so kind.

"I - I'm sorry."

Anna placed her fingers around Elsa's jawline, pulling her back, "Don't say that. I… it was nice."

Elsa smiled through biting her own lip, "You're cute."

_Oh GOD. Fuck… FUCK! _She shut her eyes for a moment and made herself push Anna's hand away from her face. It wasn't her best decision, but considering she was half-driven by the heat within her lower abdomen, the other half her _sane, sisterly _self - it was better than the alternative that lingered in her mind, foggy with its want.

"We should… we should get going to the cottage," she said, fingers still intertwined with Anna's. She didn't want to lose that feeling, the compromise she'd made between her two halves, the damned id and the better of the best superego. The ego controlled - straining, but still controlling.

She wondered how long it would last.

* * *

Local transit (i.e., a kindly older woman who had offered them a ride until they could rent a car in the morning) took them as near to the cottage as it could – for the rest of the way, or rather half of the rest of the way, Anna hooked her arms around Elsa's left elbow, sometimes with her head resting upon the blonde's shoulder. They both had scarves covering their mouths and noses, but the cold still nearly froze the little bit of exposed skin left on their faces by the time they had reached the cottage.

It was quite the charming little holiday home. She had, after debating the choices Anna had given her, gone with the one that Anna had most loved. It had red chestnut siding with a black roof, and once inside she saw that it had a decently-sized balcony up a staircase, where she also saw two beds and another small room which she supposed housed a half-bath.

They had had their suitcases and other belongings sent to the cottage earlier; Anna was the first to point out that they'd already made it here.

"Look, Elsa!"

She did. "Hm, speedy service."

She didn't really take anything else in until she heard the shower running a few meters away from where she sat on her bed in the closed-in balcony. She had taken the one closest to the broad window that gave a breathtaking view of the northern lights, and the one farthest from the bathroom. Elsa still didn't understand why Anna had so easily let her have this bed.

_What am I doing here again? _The sound of water running placed images of Anna in her head that should _never _in her right mind be there – _but when was I last in my right mind, anyway? _Disgruntled, she fell back onto the mattress, bed still unmade, and let herself drown in the flashing explicit images while she could. She thought that if maybe she let them run freely _now_, with Anna safely in the shower itself, that when she finally came out, she could easily shut off that train of thought.

But when were her hypotheses ever correct, at that?

Elsa vaguely wondered if her nose was going to start bleeding like in some damn typical anime, because _fuck. _Her sister had stepped out of the steaming bathroom, towel still wrapped around her, but… god. It still didn't leave much to the imagination.

Healthy and shapely were the two words she would currently use to describe Anna.

Clinically, at least.

As Anna sat down on her bed and started to dry her hair with a towel, Elsa turned over in her own bed and squeezed her eyes shut, but to no avail of erasing what she had just seen.

_How in the fuck am I gonna last through these two weeks?_


	11. sequence eleven

**A/N: **Sorry about the wait, you guys! Thanks for being a patient bunch. :) When I posted the last chapter, I was beginning to get a cold and that put me out of commission for a few days since I'm hardly ever sick and wow it sucks when it does happen. Like, Jesus, you can't even _taste_ things when you have a cold? Load of bullshit right there. Then, of course, I am also in university and that takes up a decent (understatement) portion of my time. Also, holy shit. One hundred follows? Y'all are awesome. Thanks for sticking around.

* * *

**Kristoff (01:34)**  
Have you told her?

**Elsa (01:35)**  
Told her what?

**Kristoff (01:38)**  
YOU KNOW. (I'm being kind by not specifying.)

**Elsa (01:40)**  
I haven't found a suitable time yet.

**Kristoff (01:42)**  
It's been _four days_, Elsa.

**Elsa (01:48)**  
Don't make me ask about you and Olaf.

**Kristoff (01:49)**  
Shut the hell up.

**Kristoff (01:49)**  
:)

"What's this?" a familiar voice came from behind her shoulder.

Elsa froze, then jumped out of her seat on the couch, phone forgotten behind her. _How in the hell did she GET there? _Anna was smiling at her, blush on her cheeks, "I'm sorry," but then she picked up her phone anyway.

_You shouldn't care. It's practically... practically sister's rights, yeah? _She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and shrugged uneasily, "Uh... uh, y-you don't have to apologize. Anna." The name shivered off her tongue, hesitation holding it still in the air for a moment. Her sister stared at her, then blinked once - her face quizzical.

"You're odd," Anna remarked, glancing down at Elsa's phone before tossing it to the blonde, "But funny. I like you." The redhead giggled before she closed the distance between them and embraced her, the bathrobe she'd put on just barely tied together, hanging loose around her. Elsa stiffened, feeling her sister's body flush against her own.

_Don't fucking feel. Don't. _She worked on steadying her breaths, returning Anna's hug with her own arms around the younger girl's waist.

"What haven't you told me?" Anna asked, her words resting against Elsa's neck. The tips of her fingers bent in towards her palms, digging into the fabric of Anna's robe.

Elsa pulled back, halfway wanting to say it wasn't her business what she and Kristoff had been talking about, but that... she couldn't keep purposely fucking up, distancing herself, remaining so goddamn aloof, when their parents weren't around any longer. She still, though, worried. About hurting her. _Anna. _She opened her mouth to answer, "Your song... at the concert. I loved it."

_What the fuck was that?! That's not... Christ. Another half-truth, not the one I'd meant to say, though._

Anna's face fell, though she smiled just a fraction, "Oh, thank you."

"Anna?"

Her sister had turned to finish drying her hair, "Hm?"

"Was that... " she gesticulated to nothing with her arms, trying to find the right words, "The... the lyrics...?"

_What the hell, why can't you form one coherent _sentence_, Elsa? _She felt the blood rush to her cheeks, _S__o idiotic. _With her head turned away, she took a moment to steel herself, feeling Anna's hand touch her arm. Some kind of unknown strength came to within her, and she looked Anna in the eyes.

"Was it - the song, I mean - directed at me, or... am I that vain?"

_Holy shit. That..._

"Elsa..."

Anna's eyes held a shimmering quality about them; it took Elsa a moment too long to realize her sister was about to cry.

"Oh, fuck - don't - "

Anna blinked the tears away, "I won't. But... they... yes."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't need to - " But Anna didn't finish. Elsa clamped her palm over the redhead's mouth, shushing her.

She sighed, pulling Anna close to her, her free hand pressed against the small of her younger sister's back, giving her strength extra leverage until Anna would stop _trying _to talk.

"Yes, I do. Shut up for a minute, will you?" She winced and let go of Anna, watching as the other girl backed away a small distance, sitting down on the couch Elsa had just been on.

"That..." she rubbed at the back of her neck, "Christ, that came out wrong. Will you listen?" _That's better._ Anna nodded, crossing her legs - Elsa was glad they were near a fire. She needed to still be quick, though - as quick as this could be. She didn't want Anna taking cold, especially out here.

While she paced, she apologized again, though in greater detail - starting first with her outburst earlier in the semester. Halfway through, she wished aloud that Kristoff were here, but Anna rebuked her, saying, "He's already heard this, like you said, and _please_, come sit down, Els - you've been pacing far too long and it's..." Her sister didn't finish the thought, though; she only uncrossed her legs again and put out a hand towards the blonde.

_I... I can't. But... _She wanted to, and Anna clearly wanted her to, as well. She was a slave to her conflicting thoughts, desires. The desire to simply be a better sister, the desire to _touch _Anna, to love and be loved in two deeply contrasting ways. _How did she become such an object of confusion? _Elsa briefly wondered if she should see a damn shrink, though what help they could offer... she internally scoffed.

As she sat down beside Anna, farther away than Anna liked, her sister made a small disparaging noise and scooted closer. When the outside of their thighs touched, Elsa's breath hitched, but she forced herself to quickly recover.

_Don't feel._

But how could she shut off the _other _long-buried emotions that were stumbling out of her mouth now, word after word, "_Painting._"

That came from Anna's lips.

"So, this is why... why you stopped? So suddenly?"

Had she already gotten that far in the story? She couldn't remember anything of what she had said - she wasn't even sure what _language _she'd spoken in, if it was Norwegian or English or some made-up word vomit consisting of both or neither.

Apparently she had gotten the main point across, though. Anna... she didn't look stunned. More like, disgusted? _At me? _Elsa's eyes widened; _no, no, no, no, no. _She instinctively moved away, but before she got far, Anna was there, grasping onto her arm and holding her back. They were both standing now, and Elsa wanted to melt into the ground and become part of the floor. Become nothing.

"Elsa... no. I - _fuck._" She heard Anna mutter a few indistinguishable words under her breath, and then, "Why... why would Mama and Papa do that? They could have just... told me the truth! Why didn't they? Why make it so needlessly _complicated_ and tear us apart at the same time?"

"I wish I knew," Elsa whispered, though she felt some inkling at the back of her head that she didn't voice. She had wrestled with it herself as a child, but for one thing, Father's word was law. She knew he loved both her and Anna, but Anna... Anna came first, behind the metaphorical curtains. Away from outside societal eyes that only looked towards Elsa, the eldest daughter, the one who would apparently - due to birth order - take the political reigns from her father when he grew old and weary.

But he never had.

Anna suddenly wrapped her arms around Elsa from the back, hands tight around the blonde's stomach. Elsa couldn't just force herself away this time; she surrendered to her sister's affections, wondering why she wasn't feeling... well, fuck. Okay. _There goes that. __Thanks for kissing me right on the nape of my _neck, _goddammit. _Elsa bit back a small moan that threatened to escape from her throat. She didn't need this. Didn't need the close contact. Didn't need.

But she wanted _so damn much_, especially after all of this. It felt enough like a dream, anyhow.

"I love you, Elsa," her sister said, her voice low yet clear, "That whole... debacle. It... it wasn't your fault."

"Th... that's what K-Kristoff said." _Stop shuddering like some wanton whore that hasn't got some in ages! _But Anna, oh god, Anna took it as if her elder sister was nearing tears or some likewise breakdown of pent-up emotions.

"It _wasn't,_ Elsa," Anna continued, nuzzling closer to her. There more than likely wasn't near _anywhere _they _weren't _touching now, body-to-body. She even felt Anna's heartbeat against her back, faintly - trying to focus on _it_ instead of the chest against her back.

"I love you," Anna repeated, "And you don't _ever _need to distance yourself again. I always _wanted _to be part of your life. And now... now we can!"

Her sister's mood had vastly improved, but Elsa...

She bit down on her tongue and hung her head, which Anna took as a nod. Elsa didn't bother correcting her sister, instead opting to allow herself to feel what was really happening now.

_Feeling. _Emotions washing over her like she had not allowed in the past (had tried to control), thoughts going back, remembering flashes of what she had said now to Anna; Elsa felt her chest suddenly heave out a wracking sob, her body with a will of its own - she certainly hadn't _wanted_ to start crying, god. She wasn't sure, and was sure at the same time, where it came from - something buried for years upon years, and then she heard Anna's voice again:

_"It wasn't your fault." _So very like Kristoff's words. An echo of his, really, but much, much more. Because they were from _Anna._ She felt her knees give way as she crumpled to the floor, covering her face in her hands. A sense of shame poured through her veins, head to toe.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she repeated, wishing she had some explanation for this, but it wasn't like she was on her damned period. She was just, simply, a mess. Even Anna's words and presence couldn't fix everything in a moment, that was impossible. Because, still, at the back of her mind, were her shameful thoughts and the silhouettes of her parents, watching as her father's hand petted Anna's hair so gently.

_I wanted that. To take part and... _

"Elsa, stop saying you're sorry!"

Elsa lifted her head up and met Anna's strong gaze, her redheaded sister staring determinedly at her. Taking her chance, the Anna grabbed Elsa's hands in her own and massaged Elsa's pale skin with one of her thumbs. _God_, she melted right into it. The tears had stopped, and she was silent.

"We..." Anna started, "I wish we knew _why _they had made such a drastic decision, but - but there's nothing really we can do about it now. Can't ask them why, and we don't have an... wait."

Her sister's eyes widened, "What about Uncle?"

"What about him?" Elsa said, thinking about Oaken, the big-boned man that was somehow related to their mother. Somehow, someway... her brother. Christ.

Anna's eyes brightened, "What if he knows something we don't, about this all? And just thinks Mama and Papa eventually told us? So that's why he hasn't?"

"I..." but Elsa couldn't finish her thoughts. Anna had squealed and ran off, yelling something about phoning him.

And all Elsa could think about still was the soothing motions of her little sister's thumb on her hand. She shivered, but not out of feeling chilled.

It was the fifth night here.

Only the fifth night. _God._

A few minutes later, Anna told her that their uncle wanted to see them for Christmas day. A feast, he had said, if Anna wanted to come, and if Elsa still did, too. "I didn't really get his wording with us," Anna told her as they made their way up to the balcony for the night, "But anyway, I can't wait! He's always cooked so well."

"Being a chef," Elsa said, "That would make sense."

Anna laughed, "Shut up!" Her hair was still slightly wet, and she still had on her bathrobe for the moment.

_You're so fucking beautiful. And I'm not ever sure which part of me is saying that now. _She was confused, again, at the varying degrees and types of emotions she felt towards her sister, but chalked it up to a fluke like this fluke of a weird-ass night.

However, everything when to shit again when Anna _begged _to sleep with Elsa in her bed tonight.

_"I just want to be close to you," _her sister had said.

And now, somehow, Anna was cuddled up against her. The big spoon to Elsa's little.

She didn't get that much sleep that night.


	12. sequence twelve

**A/N:** Yo! Last week I saw the biggest snow I ever have - about 4.8 inches, and the ice was hell off the main roads. I'm aware that's nothing to many people, but for the Upper South of the United States? It's a more-than-decent amount. So that got in the way of concentrating on this, and last week was also mid-terms. I'm on spring break now, though - yet no guarantee that it'll result in productivity because being lazy is fun as hell. (Hey, at least I'm being honest.) I've still got more to cover in this fic, though, but I can foresee it ending in maybe another... ten to fifteen chapters, though it could end up far less than that. I've never been one for writing long fics, anyway, and I never like to drag shit on that's unnecessary. Anyway! Onto the chapter. Thanks for reading!

* * *

"How you want to go _skiing_ when you can't even ice skate is beyond me," Elsa said as they pulled onto a road that would take them to the resort. Anna huffed and stuck her tongue out at her older sister.

"At least with skiing, when I fall, I'll land on _snow_. That hurts a lot less than bruising my butt on pure ice."

Elsa couldn't argue with that.

It was their seventh full day in the area, not as if they had the sun's rising and setting to tell them that. As it was the middle of December, the sun had not risen since the second of December, and even then, it had only been present for less than half an hour. Their days as well as their nights were cloaked in infinite evenings, the only light sources coming from artificial means. Elsa was grateful for the invention of electricity, to say the least, though the natural charm of fires hadn't lost their popularity, either.

When Elsa had informed Anna that she had secretly reserved a room for them in a lodge at Narvik for possible "winter activities" for a few days, Anna had squealed. And then promptly pounced on Elsa, wrapping her arms around the blonde. All of this after a night of being spooned by her, too.

It was infuriatingly wonderful feeling this loved and _accepting_ it, while keeping a lid on any further impulses she felt. Every so often, her eyes would linger on Anna's lips, or the curves of her body, but she managed to reign in any desires. _Accept what you already have. Let it be enough._ Which, for the moment, was relatively easy. Anna was a natural with physical affection - she adored it, and now that she believed everything was settled, the redhead wasn't hesitant about showing Elsa how much she loved her.

There were the soft touches lingering on her arms, her shoulders, and most anywhere else that one could think of that fit for two sisters. Elsa particularly loved it when Anna would play with her hair, and, for the first time in forever, Elsa allowed Anna to braid it. They'd watched television while Anna worked at it, which gave Elsa distraction enough from focusing too much on how great Anna's fingers in her hair felt.

But they did feel fucking great. _Fan-fucking-tastic_, to be precise.

It didn't feel so great when Anna went to meet Kristoff on their sixth day in Harstad. Elsa had wanted to come as well, but Anna was dead set against the prospect, and would not explain why, either.

Her sister didn't like secrets, which was really what got to Elsa.

But her worrying was all for (mostly) nothing, however.

Kristoff had came in the door first, his arms full of painting supplies. He had a couple sacks of paint colors, some brushes; Anna came behind him with canvases and whatnot; and then -

_"Olaf?!"_

It was unmistakably him, just with a bit more disheveled hair, the charcoal color of it contrasting magnificently with the orange jeans he was wearing. Complemented, of course, with a blue overcoat, some kind of green-ish scarf wrapped around his neck -

"He _really_ does enjoy announcing himself," Kristoff said offhandedly as he placed his armful of supplies on the kitchen table where she and Anna had been dining for the past several days - at least once a day, if not more.

Olaf grinned, "She did me proud, Kris. It's all right. The look on your face, though, Elsa!" He laughed and set down the two easels he had carried in with him by the couch and then came in for a hug. Elsa didn't even bother trying to ease her way out of it - the guy wasn't happy until he'd greeted _everyone_ with a hug who'd accept it. At least when it was feasible, something small. She knew he couldn't possibly do it when confronted with larger crowds.

"What - what is all this for?" she asked, gesturing to the supplies. Of course she knew what they were, but she didn't... want to believe. She felt a short wave of anxiety come over her, because this all felt too soon. They hadn't even asked her! Maybe she wasn't _really_ into painting anymore, maybe she... but her fucking major. _Why couldn't I have chosen something not art-related?_

But art was her home. It was her escape, and her passion.

Within the depths of herself, Elsa felt a yearning towards the paints.

She shut her eyes and turned away. But then a small hand was on her shoulder, gripping slightly at the fabric of her jacket.

"Elsa," Anna said. "It's only if you want to. You don't..."

She started at her sister's words, wondering, _what did I ever do to deserve someone so nice as my family member? What stroke of fortune?_ The old thought pattern falling back so easily. Yet she looked into Anna's eyes, turquoise to her stark blue, and realized, that in some way, Anna loved her. For some reason, she did.

She breathed out, softly, just for Anna, "Thank you." And then, louder, for the boys to hear as well, "I'm actually taking Painting I next semester. It's... something that I've been putting off. So... thanks." She did her best to hide any lingering doubts and fears, making her voice try to sound as damned earnest in her thanks as she truly felt.

She didn't touch any of the supplies, though, until later that evening after Olaf and Kristoff had gone for the night.

"So," Elsa said as she was stooped on the floor, touching one of the easels with her fingers, running them along the wood tentatively, "Which one of you told Olaf about it all?"

"I, ah," Anna stuttered, "I thought it would be..."

"It's okay. He's fine. Just don't... make it public knowledge? Yeah?"

"I know, there's no need to at that. And, anyway," Anna said, and bent down beside Elsa, wrapping an arm around the older girl, "It's more special this way, like... well, not a _secret_. But something just between us four. Am I - am I making any sense?"

Elsa turned her head and smiled, "Yeah." Anna wasn't the best with words, but Elsa knew Anna's language.

"You really are too cute, you know," Anna remarked, "I'm glad you... let me see you now. Like this. I'm sorry I'm bad at this whole... thing. Talking. Thing. I'm rambling. I'm sorry." Her sister blushed and hung her head slightly; Elsa laughed and rested her forehead against Anna's, feeling some kind of emotion threatening to overpower her.

_Reign yourself in._

_But I want to kiss her._

_Compromise._

She nodded into Anna's head and kissed the younger girl's hairline, working on ignoring the slightly rising heat in her center at the same time. She felt ashamed, blushing, but Anna could never tell why she was. Thankfully. For all she knew, it was just because she wasn't used to this. And she _wasn't._

A lot had happened recently.

Anna had helped her situate some of her supplies for the next week or so they would be spending here. They'd even taken some with them to the lodge in Narvik. Not much, just simple paints for simple practices.

When they'd unpacked at the lodge, Anna had suggested spending some time painting, "Well, you, that is. Since I can't paint." The redhead placed a hand on the back of her neck awkwardly, "But, um..." She bit her lip.

"Hm?" Elsa was finishing unpacking her things and setting up the easel and other supplies.

"May I, er, watch? Like... we used to?"

Elsa's eyes widened, just a smidgen, and she tentatively nodded, "I don't see why not."

"I promise I won't be so idiotic enough again to try and eat any paints! I promise." Elsa stiffened at the memory that Anna was now privy to again, but the feeling dissipated quickly, and as she settled into painting scenery of the natural world, everything but the simple feeling of joy left her.

"It's a fjord and its surroundings, something like what we saw on the drive up," she said, as she switched paints, after Anna had asked what she was going for. Still in the early stages, it wasn't apparent what the end product would be.

About fifteen minutes later, however, she was done. Partially. Maybe. She wasn't sure.

"It's _gorgeous_," Anna said.

She blushed and nervously ran her thumb and forefinger over the edges of her lips. "It's shit 'cause I haven't done this in ages."

"Didn't you taking a painting class in secondary school?"

Elsa squinted at Anna, "How did you - ?"

She had, she fucking had. But she'd never told her parents that she'd signed up for it - seeing other students in the art room _painting_ had been so tantalizing that she'd given in and signed up, telling her parents and Anna that she had just wound up having a free period.

"I saw you sometimes, in the art room, as I was walking by, doing something. Usually errands for teachers, that sort of stuff."

"And you didn't say anything?"

"Well," Anna said a bit awkwardly, biting her lip momentarily before continuing, "We didn't really... talk? Back then?"

Her shoulders tensed - "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Elsa."

_Again with the 'not your fault.' Fuck, I love you so fucking much. _Not to mention how kind her sister's tone was, how sweet and gentle. She clenched her hands into fists, not out of anger or frustration, but prevention. She wanted to reach out and pull Anna close to her, she wanted so much more than that, too. She managed to mutter a 'thank you' before she stood and went upstairs, locking herself in the bathroom.

After turning on the sink faucet, Elsa sat on the edge of the bathtub. Her heartbeat echoed against her chest. _You've lasted a week already. Just one fucking more. One more. Excluding the shit at uncle Oaken's on Christmas. But that? _She knew that would be fucking easy compared to this life without distractions from Anna. The cold as fuck temperatures mostly kept them indoors, which was a sort of fantastical hell. It was masochistic.

"Elsa?" her sister's familiar voice came from behind the door separating them. Then there was a knock on the door.

She didn't really want Anna to come in, but she knew it would be a step backward to push her away again. After everything she'd done, what she had told Anna, it wouldn't make sense.

After a moment's pause of deliberation, she said, "It's unlocked."

_Are you all right_ were the first words out of Anna's mouth. Elsa contemplated the redhead, still sitting on the edge of the tub. Her pigtail braids were mussed up, which should have made her look unappealing - but apparently somewhat unkempt Anna was a beautiful Anna. And with the heating system warming the lodge, her sister had on clothing perfect for early spring or fall: a button-up shirt complemented with a green cardigan over it, and fitting jeans.

"Elsa?"

She fixed her eyes towards Anna's face and said, "I'm a third all right according to the Olaf Scale."

"The... wait, what?"

The pale blonde laughed softly, left hand going to cover her mouth, "Ha, I'm sorry. Olaf has his own happiness scale. He's nearly always at the top - at least that's what he says - which, as you know, is twice the normal level of complete happiness at least. So, yes, I am all right."

_Now that you're here, that is. And I'm feeling okay about... us. At least for now._

Anna didn't look too convinced as she closed the distance between them and kneeled before Elsa, but she didn't say anything. She just smiled, but if felt like an empty echo of her sister, not Anna herself. Elsa wished she could be completely honest.

_You can. _

She shut her eyes once Anna rested her head on her lap. She was warm, and Elsa couldn't bring herself to push Anna away again.

So she just stayed put and ran slow fingers through thick red hair until Anna's breathing grew steady; _she's asleep, somehow. _Elsa felt a smile stretch across her lips, "How in the world you can fall asleep like this... it's beyond me." But a lot of Anna was _beyond _her. Her giving and loving nature, her not-so-sure handle on words sometimes, just... _her. _Something was dormant in her at this moment, and Elsa honestly hoped it would stay that way. She never _asked _for inappropriate feelings towards her own sister. It wasn't natural, and she knew it.

This time then of only feeling protective sisterly affection was a blessing, then. And she knew that as well.

Elsa held onto it, this feeling, as she moved Anna gently and picked her up, carrying her to her own bed. It was somewhat of a struggle, considering Anna was about the same size as her, just a little bit smaller, but adrenaline and determination carried her through. She laid the redhead onto her bed gently, taking a blanket from the floor and draping it over her.

"Tomorrow we'll go skiing, just like you've wanted," she whispered to herself as she wrote the words down on a post-it note at the same time, leaving it on the bedside table between them so Anna would see it when she woke up later.

_And maybe watch the northern lights? _she added at the end. She bit her lip, hoping that maybe her rightful and proper feelings would continue on into the next twenty-four (and maybe even _more_) hours. She knew feelings were fickle, however - especially her own.

Something far greater than herself was on the line, though - some_one_, actually. Anna was too precious to ruin.

* * *

**A/N Afterword:** Nearly forgot to mention, but I've now got a Frozen/Elsanna and whatnot blog. It can be found at fractalthrone dot tumblr dot com. I may post drabbles there sometimes if I get the time and inspiration.


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